Like it or not, there are two traditional tiebreakers which are swinging Altuve's way. 1. Production against type. Judge is your typical masher swinging a Smash Bros bat: anytime it makes contact that ball is leaving the yard. Altuve on the other hand is your pint sized speedy run scoring middle infielder. Anytime this type of player comes up against the traditional masher, extra credit is given to the run scorer who is making things look harder for him than the masher who is just expected to put up huge HR/RBI numbers on the virtue of strength alone. Case in point: Ichiro 2001 (7.7 WAR); Pedroia 2008 (6.9 WAR); Ellsbury 2011 (8.1 WAR: Verlander actually won this year but Ellsbury was the top position player). 2. Team wins. Yes I understand that WAR is supposed to normalize for a player's supporting cast, isolating the value he contributed to his team's winning chances. Still, it's not about right or wrong. Other things being equal, voters have used team performance as a tiebreaker to determine who gets these kinds of awards. I'm not trying to overtly stump for Altuve here. I'm just trying to say I think it'll happen because of these extra reasons above. It's not about what should be; it's about what has been in the past and likely will be yet again in the future.
I hope Altuve wins this award because his body of work this season, and the last few, speaks for itself as one of the most consistently great hitters in baseball. I also believe he is better defensively than Judge, which has to count for something. This reminds me of the JJ vs. Rodgers debate a couple of years ago; if what the voters are looking for is home runs, just rename it "best offensive player award" similar to the NFL MVP being awarded to the best quarterback. I know there's a lot more to it than that, but I'm also a bitter Houston sports fan tired of seeing our deserving MVPs get runner-up every year.
Either way you slice it, a strong case can be made for either Altuve or Judge. Who here wouldn't be advocating for Judge if he were playing for the Astros, and Altuve was playing for the Yankees?
Judge will win... Tri-Dub overtaking Harden. Hakeem, Bags, Watt, Clemens, and Keuchel are the only major award winners. Altuve doing it too with multiple batting titles. Need more. Do more. Win championships.
Were you saying this 2014 during Watt's MVP bid? --- 9-7 is no punk. Crazy how Texans make 2 of 3 postseasons, but the non-year was the MVP season. Would've made the KC blowout much more worth it if switched.
Carlos Correa, Stevie Franchise & Ralph Sampson won ROTY as well. Not quite an MVP or Cy Young, but still one of the bigger awards.
Vasgersian and Smoltz on today's Fox broadcast made it sound like it was a done deal for Judge. Thankfully they don't have votes. Ken Rosenthal who I think does followed up their comments by stating the case for Altuve, and it was reassuring because like other such sportswriters he was giving a lot of credit to Altuve for being a middle infielder and for doing it all year with not a single month with an OPS below .860. Judge on the other hand was AWOL for July and August, and his team lost the pennant as a result. Looking beyond the gaudy traditional stats (BA, HR, RBI, R) is something I believe we can now count on our educated baseball writer's association to do. Good for Altuve.
