Altuve, Stanton are best of the best
NEW YORK — Jose Altuve and the Houston Astros have grown together, enduring an arduous rebuild and coming out the other side as baseball’s best.
These days, nobody is standing taller.
Altuve won the American League MVP award Thursday, beating New York outfielder Aaron Judge by a wide margin and capping Houston’s championship season with another piece of hardware.
Miami outfielder Giancarlo Stanton won the NL MVP, edging Joey Votto of the Reds in the closest vote since 1979.
Altuve, a 5-foot-6 second baseman, drew 27 of the 30 first-place votes in balloting by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
“I was surprised that I won it,” Altuve said. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
It was a landslide long in the making. Altuve has been in Houston since general manager Jeff Luhnow took a scorchedearth tactic to developing a winner. The Astros lost 100-plus games in each of Altuve’s first three seasons, beginning in 2011.
Houston won its first World Series title this month, and it needed its longest-tenured player to get there. Altuve batted a major-league-best .346 in the regular season, hit 24 home runs with 81 RBIs, scored 112 times, stole 32 bases and showed a sharp glove. Voting for these honors was completed before the postseason.
It has been more than a decade since Altuve signed with Houston from Venezuela — only after he was sent home from one tryout and told he was too short.
“They told me not to come back,” Altuve said. “It was something me and my dad, he went with me that day, we were like, ‘We have to go again. We have to try again.’
“It’s not a rule that you have to be 6-foot or you have to be really strong to play baseball and become a good player.”
Altuve beat out a player who couldn’t be more different. Judge, who’s 6-7, won the AL Rookie of the Year award Monday after setting a rookie record with 52 home runs. Judge’s moon-shot homers dominated the highlights, and his No. 99 jersey was the top seller in baseball. Even Altuve has said he would have voted for Judge.
Judge got only two first-place votes, with the other going to third-place finisher Jose Ramirez of Cleveland.
Altuve was the second Houston player to win an MVP; Jeff Bagwell earned the 1994 NL award.
Stanton, 28, earned the franchise’s first MVP in the same week new team executive Derek Jeter said the club is listening to trade offers for him. Stanton is owed $295 million over the final decade of his record $325 million, 13year contract.
Stanton, who’s 6-6, led the big leagues with 59 home runs, most in the majors since 2001, when Barry Bonds hit a record 73 and Sammy Sosa had 64.
Stanton got 10 firstplace votes and 302 points. Votto, who led the majors with a .454 onbase percentage, also got 10 firsts and had 300 points. Arizona’s Paul Goldschmidt was third.
“I felt like it was going to be so close and I felt like I had a legitimate shot,” Votto said. “It just feels like it’s exactly kind of how I thought it would play out.”
The last time an MVP race was so close, Willie Stargell and Keith Hernandez tied for the NL prize in 1979.
Stanton became only the sixth player to win from a losing team. The Marlins were 77-85.
Stanton joins Dan Marino and LeBron James as Miami pro athletes in a major sport to win MVP awards.
“That’s definitely good company,” Stanton said.