Donaldson, Harper named leagues’ best
Keuchel places 5th, Altuve 10th in AL voting
Even while not winning, the Astros capped an impressive award season Thursday night with two players among the top 10 in the American League Most Valuable Player race.
Astros lefthander Dallas Keuchel, the 2015 AL Cy Young Award winner, finished fifth in the MVP race. Three-time All-Star Jose Altuve finished 10th, and 2015 AL Rookie of the Year Carlos Correa picked up an eighth-place vote.
Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson received 23 first-place votes and seven second-place votes from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America to earn his first MVP Award. He beat out 2014 AL MVP Mike Trout, the Angels outfielder who received seven first-place votes, 22 for second and one for third.
Outfielder Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals was the unanimous selection as the National League MVP. The Woodlands High graduate Paul Goldschmidt of the Diamondbacks finished second.
Harper received all 30 first-place votes from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Goldschmidt, a first baseman, earned 18 second-place votes, three for third, one for fourth, three for fifth, three for sixth and two for seventh.
Donaldson beat Trout, 385-304, in the final vote tally.
Two BBWAA members from each AL city cast MVP ballots, which include 10 slots. Outfielder Lorenzo Cain of the World Series champion Royals finished third with 225. He received 20 third-place votes, eight fourth-place votes and one apiece for sixth and seventh.
Votes are submitted before the postseason. Manny Machado of the Orioles finished fourth with 158 votes. Keuchel, who became the third Astros pitcher to win the Cy Young Award, garnered 107 votes to finish fifth.
Keuchel received three fourth-place votes, eight for fifth place, five for sixth, one for seventh and three for eighth after going 20-8 to lead the AL in victories and innings pitched.
“It’s something I would never expect, but if I had a few votes it would mean a lot to me just because of the hard work and what I put into my craft,” Keuchel said of the MVP race. “I try to be the best every time out, and I try to put everything I have into my work. So to be appreciated, it means a lot to me.”
A year after finishing 13th with 41 points despite winning the AL batting crown, Altuve, a second baseman, finished 10th with 44 points. He garnered six votes for sixth place, one for seventh, three for eighth and one for 10th.
Thursday marked the end of arguably the most successful award season in the 54-year history of the franchise.
With Correa capturing the franchise’s second Rookie of the Year Award on Monday and Keuchel’s Cy Young Award on Wednesday, the Astros
won two national BBWAA awards in the same year for only the second time in franchise history and the first since Hal Lanier was the NL Manager of the Year and Mike Scott was the NL Cy Young Award winner in 1986.
A.J. Hinch finished second in the AL Manager of the Year race Tuesday.
“I think it’s great to represent what we’re doing as a team,” Hinch said of the AL wild-card winners. “And certainly good things happen to all of us when we win.”