Josh Hamilton Wins the 2010 AL MVP Award

by Jeff Aberle on Nov 23, 2010 12:15 PM MST in Miscellaneous

It was a battle of troubled but freakishly talented sluggers for the AL MVP. In one corner was 29 year-old OF Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers, who battled drug addiction and other issues for several years. He came back as a Rule 5 pick (of the Reds, who traded him to the Rangers for Edinson Volquez) and dominated the AL to the tune of .359/.411/.633 (.447 wOBA, 182 wRC+) with 32 HRs and 100 RBI in leading his team to the World Series.

In the other corner was 27 year-old 1B Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers, whose problems with alcohol came to a head at the end of the 2009 regular season. He turned around and hit .328/.420/.622 (.429 wOBA, 172 wRC+) with 38 HRs and 126 RBI.

Cabrera had more impressive counting stats and was liked more by rWAR (6.9 to 6.0), partially because Hamilton missed 29 games with injury, while Hamilton was liked more by fWAR (8.0 to 6.2) due to his OF defense and superior rate stats.

When all was said and done, Hamilton received 22 of 28 first place ballots to secure the MVP award with 358 points. Cabrera got five first place votes and placed second with 262 points, while Yankees 2B Robinson Cano was third with 229 points. The MLB home run king, Blue Jays 3B Jose Bautista, received the other first place vote and placed fourth with 165 points.

The voting of the Purple Row staff a month ago closely mirrored the results, though we gave Hamilton the MVP unanimously.

Full voting is after the jump.

2010 AL MVP Award Voting

	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	Points
Josh Hamilton, Texas	22	4		2							358
Miguel Cabrera, Detroit	5	11	10	1	1						262
Robinson Cano, New York		12	12	1	3						229
Jose Bautista, Toronto	1		4	8	5	1	6		1	2	165
Paul Konerko, Chicago				4	7	6	5	2	1	2	130
Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay				2	3	6	5	5	1	1	100
Carl Crawford, Tampa Bay		1		6	3	2		3	4	2	98
Joe Mauer, Minnesota			2	1	3	6	2	3	4	1	97
Adrian Beltre, Boston				1	1	3	4	9	6		83
Delmon Young, Minnesota				1		2	4	2	1	3	44
Vladimir Guerrero, Texas							2	1	4	3	22
Rafael Soriano, Tampa Bay				1	1			1	1	3	21
CC Sabathia, New York								2	3	1	13
Shin-Soo Choo, Cleveland						1			1	2	9
Alex Rodriguez, New York						1			1	1	8
Felix Hernandez, Seattle					1						6
Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle										3	3
Jim Thome, Minnesota										2	2
Joakim Soria, Kansas City										1	1
Mark Teixeira, New York										1	1

As you can see, CC Sabathia received more support as MVP than did AL Cy Young Award winner Felix Hernandez, but neither received as much support as Rays closer Rafael Soriano, who finished 12th. Joakim Soria of Kansas City was the only other pitcher to receive a vote.

With this final award, the 2010 season is officially in the books.

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