Curtis Granderson - AL MVP?

The MVP Award is traditionally given to the player from a playoff team that helped that team win the most. The exceptions of course were Andre Dawson with the last place Cubs and Alex Rodriguez with the last place Rangers. In both of those cases the players put up ridiculous numbers in relation to the rest of the league.

This year in the AL there is no player that is completely lapping the field in regard to triple crown numbers.

If you like your stats sabremetic style then there may be a surprise in store for you.

According to Win Shares - the AL MVP right now should be Curtis Granderson of the Tigers who leads the league with 16 (Joe Mauer of the Twins is second with 15). It should also be noted that the Detroit Tigers have the best record in baseball and along with leading them in Win Shares - sabremetrically Granderson has been their most potent offensive weapon - leading the team in Runs Created (RC) with 59.8 (Magglio Ordonez is second with 53.7).

So sabremetrically - Curtis Granderson probably deserves the AL MVP.

I'm not sure about you but that came as a bit of a shock for me. I never would have thought of him in my top 10.

I'm not sure what this says about the MVP process (of course there is still a lot of baseball yet to be played). I mean Curtis Granderson is a very good player but he's not Grady Sizemore good. Of course with the Indians bailing water after being swamped in the first half by the Tigers and White Sox - Sizemore or Travis Hafner or any other player from a losing team like the Indians would have to put up triple crown winning type numbers for MVP consideration.

I'm not sure if this is a good reflection or a bad reflection on taking a sabremetric approach to baseball. I was just shocked that Curtis Granderson figured so highly in the sabrementric approach. And I consider myself a guy who follows baseball pretty closely. I mean you would be laughed at if you offered Granderson for Ortiz or A-Rod in a fantasy league.

Curtis Granderson as AL MVP? I guess its not as farfetched as it sounds.