MVP voting open thread

I'll be out for the MVP award show, but here's an open thread. I'm very optimistic it will be Andrew McCutchen over Yadier Molina or Paul Goldschmidt. The narrative of McCutchen leading the Pirates to their first winning season and playoff berth since 1992 is too good to pass up. McCutchen also had a better season than either Molina or Goldschmidt. I don't think that will hurt McCutchen, although maybe that's being optimistic somehow.

In the American League, I'm sure voters will continue to tie themselves into semantic pretzels to avoid voting for baseball's best player. It's odd, given that the language of the award specifically lists "strength of offense and defense" as a key component of the award, and also says the winner doesn't need to come from a playoff-bound team. Mike Trout isn't just a better player than Miguel Cabrera, he's vastly better. It's not close. But whatever. In the NL, the best player also had the best narrative, so hopefully there won't be any conflict.

I'm not a big fan of award season, in case you can't tell.

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