Jays superstar Josh Donaldson named tops in AL by a landslide,
First Blue Jay MVP since Bell set the tone by overpowering Trout in August showdown
Most experts will tell you Mike Trout is the best player in the American League and has been for each of the four full years he’s been with the Angels. If that was the only criterion for being named most valuable player, baseball could just run numbers through a computer and spit out results without going through the voting process.
But baseball’s most prestigious award is based on more than simply the best player. That is why, on Thursday, Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson was named AL MVP.
Expected to be tight, the voting by the BBWAA was not that close. Donaldson gathered 23 first-place votes and seven second-place ballots for 385 points. Trout, the defending MVP, had seven for first place and 22 for second, with one writer taking him third. Lorenzo Cain was a distant third with 225 points. Other Jays to earn consideration were Jose Bautista (eighth), David Price (ninth), Edwin Encarnacion (12th) and catcher Russell Martin (27th), who had two 10th-place votes.
Recall that the MVP debate really heated up in August when the hardcharging Jays, three weeks after adding David Price and Troy Tulowitzki at the trade deadline, flew west to begin a big three-game series in Anaheim. The feeling at the time was that the key headto-head matchup between Donaldson and Trout would decide the front-runner heading into the September stretch drive for both clubs. As one of the two Toronto writers assigned an MVP vote, I was paying particular attention to this mano-a-mano.
Entering the August series at the Big A, the Jays were 66-55, 1.5 games behind the Yankees in the AL East. The Angels were 63-58, 2.5 games behind the Astros. If the season had ended then and there, both teams would have qualified as wild cards. Each team needed its stars to shine.
The series result? The Jays swept, outscoring the Angels 36-10. Donaldson went 8-for-13 (.615) with six runs, four doubles, a homer, nine RBIs, two walks and a sacrifice fly. Trout’s three-game totals were 3-for-10 (.300) with one run, one RBI, a walk and four strikeouts. Advantage Donaldson.
Using that as a springboard, the Jays surged past the Yankees into first place.
The Angels, meanwhile, failed to catch the Astros and were, in turn, passed by the Rangers, failing to make the playoffs.
Yes, Trout is bigger, faster and better at the art of WAR — and many of the other acronym stats that are designed to study baseball history and statistically determine the league’s best players over time. But MVP voting has not yet come down to computers. There are other factors to determine the MVP. That series in August meant something at the time and it clearly still means something now.
Over the first four months, Don- aldson had been the primary offensive contributor who held the Jays together, hovering around .500 as July closed, mediocre despite one of the best run differentials in baseball at the time. That, of course, was the statistic then-GM Alex Anthopoulos claimed truly influenced his decision to roll the dice and go for it, acquiring expensive parts at the deadline. While Martin had struggled to find an offensive groove, while Bautista battled an injured right shoulder, while Encarnacion fought through nagging injuries, Donaldson had kept them afloat.
Consider also that in 2014, when Trout earned AL MVP, the Angels won 98 games. A year later, they won 85 and missed the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Jays under John Gibbons won 83 games in 2014, then a year later with key additions — especially Donaldson, who played 158 games for the third straight season — won 93 games, 10 more than a year earlier and rolled to the playoffs.
Valuable? Of Donaldson’s careerhigh 41homers, 24 put the Jays ahead, four of them tied the score at the time and 35 were hit with the score within three runs. A total of 13 were hit in the first inning. Between Aug. 3 and Sept. 11, when the Jays were pursuing and then passing the Yankees, 10 of his 12 homers in that stretch gave the Jays a lead.
Donaldson adds the MVP award to his impressive list of 2015 hardware that includes the Hank Aaron Award as the AL’s top hitter, the Silver Slugger for production by a third baseman, and The Sporting News and MLBPA player-of-theyear nods. He’s the first Jays MVP since George Bell in 1987. Here is my 2015 AL MVP ballot, submitted prior to the playoffs: 1. Donaldson, 2. Trout, 3. Cain (Royals), 4. Manny Machado (O’s), 5. Nelson Cruz (Mariners), 6. Jose Altuve (Astros), 7. Bautista (Jays), 8. Adrian Beltre (Rangers), 9. J.D. Martinez (Tigers), 10. Jason Kipnis (Indians).