Joe Mauer Wins AL MVP While 17 Voters Forget Who Ben Zobrist Is

Joe Mauer started his season on the DL and ended it as the American League Most Valuable Player. There really was no other choice, as Mauer got 27 of the 28 first-place votes. It seems one of the BWAA members must be related to Miguel Cabrera, as that's the only way you can make a case that Cabrera should get the other first-place vote. Mauer hit .365 with 94 runs, 96 RBI and a 1.031 OPS while playing Gold Glove catcher for the Twins. Mauer beats out two Yankees in Mark Teixeira and Derek Jeter, who finished second and third, respectively. The numbers back the choice of Mauer, as he had a VORP (value over replacement player) of 91.0 to Jeter's 72.8 and Teixeira's 54.7 despite missing time to start the season and having 110 fewer plate appearances than Jeter and 101 fewer than Teixeira. Mauer was second in the league in WAR (wins above replacement) according to FanGraphs and led all position players in WARP1 (basically the same stat with different metrics) according...