Major League Baseball

Verlander deserves MVP consideration

Published Sep. 1, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Let's start with an obvious, but necessary, statement: The Most Valuable Player is usually a position player, not a pitcher.

The last pitcher to win the MVP was Dennis Eckersley in 1992. The last starter? Roger Clemens in 1986. There was a time when pitchers and position players competed for a single award in each league. Then the Baseball Writers Association of America began presenting the Cy Young in 1956. Since then, pitchers have won roughly eight percent of the MVP awards.

So, it's a once-every-decade-or-so occurrence — an aberration of excellence, the result of a truly dominant season by a pitcher.

Justin Verlander is having one of those seasons.

I'm not suggesting that Verlander deserves to win the award, but he absolutely deserves consideration. To suggest that pitchers should be ineligible contradicts both historical precedent and the BBWAA's recent trend of open-mindedness.

During an era in which we have vaporized the phantom requirement that Cy Young winners win 17 or 18 games for contending teams — see Zack Greinke and Felix Hernandez — what sense would it make to do away with an exception that has survived for more than a half-century? After all, the recipient of the inaugural Cy Young Award was also the 1956 National League MVP: Don Newcombe, 27-game winner for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The American League MVP race is, in some ways, the most captivating competition left in the 2011 regular season. No fewer than six players will arrive at the Labor Day checkpoint with bona fide top-of-the-ballot credentials: Jose Bautista, Curtis Granderson, Dustin Pedroia, Adrian Gonzalez, Jacoby Ellsbury and, yes, Verlander.

I do believe a position player should win the award if all things are equal. I'm just not convinced all things are equal in 2011. Verlander can bolster his case this weekend against the White Sox. He starts Friday's opener, giving him an opportunity to dictate the terms of the showdown series.

The MVP derby will be the subject of biased and occasionally balanced debate over the next several weeks. Then comes the best part: The award will be decided by a panel of 28 baseball writers. I'm one of them.

There isn't a clear favorite. Yet. But I can promise you this: I won't eliminate Verlander because he's a pitcher, just like I won't eliminate Bautista because he plays on a team that's out of the pennant race. This award can be won in September. At the moment, my ballot is unmarked.

Believe it or not, the BBWAA has on-paper criteria for MVP voting, and the rules haven't changed in 80 years. We are tasked with deciding who was the most valuable player to his team, with the stipulation that the winner need not come from a postseason-bound club.

Among the more noteworthy guidelines on the ballot: We must consider the "actual value of a player to his team, that is, the strength of offense and defense," as well as the "number of games played." Every word in that sentence points to a position player. More often than not, that's where the voting goes. To choose a pitcher, one has to be so completely wowed that he/she feels inspired to freelance away from the marked trail.

It doesn't happen often, but Verlander is having the kind of season that makes you wonder if this is one year when common practice shouldn't apply.

Verlander has been so dominant, and so essential to the Tigers' position atop the AL Central, that we can't possibly ignore him in any discussion of the year's most impactful player. He won 20 games before the end of August. He leads the AL in innings, strikeouts and victories, with an overall statistical profile similar to the one Clemens had a quarter-century ago.

Verlander enables manager Jim Leyland to use his bullpen liberally on the days before and after he pitches, thus impacting three (not one) out of every five games. Without him, the Tigers would be nowhere near first place.

If your definition of an MVP is the player with the biggest impact on his team's division race, then you would probably vote for Verlander.

If your definition of an MVP is the player whose production was most essential to his lineup, then you would probably vote for Bautista.

If your definition of an MVP is the most dynamic performer on both sides of the ball, then you would probably vote for Ellsbury.

If your definition of an MVP is the player with the most impressive raw numbers — home runs, RBI, runs scored — then you would probably vote for Granderson.

In the past, I thought I knew what type of voter I would be. I'm less certain now. Verlander has forced me to reconsider. I'm glad I have a month to mull it over.