My 2015 Hall of Fame Ballot

Once again, it’s time for me to cast my vote in the Baseball Bloggers Alliance’s Hall of Fame election. This year, they switched to a binary “Yes/No” choice for each player, rather than keeping the BBWAA’s system of a ten-person limit. That saved me the trouble of trying to decide whether to leave off the top choices to make room for the down-ballot players. So, briefly, here are my thoughts on each player.

Pitching Triple Crowns: Where Do Verlander and Kershaw Rank?

So, first off, congratulations to recently-named Cy Young winners Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander. Both were deserving winners, and this piece is not meant to disparage their seasons in any way (because I know that, if enough people read this, at least one person will think that it is). Rather, it more sprung from my curiosity about pitchers and the MVP.

After comparing Verlander’s Triple Crown season to the previous few, I decided that I might want to take a more in-depth look at how his season compared to other Triple Crown winners (and yes, this is partly related to why I’m not a big fan of Verlander winning the MVP). I figured the best way was to do a straight up comparison bewtween his season and the seven other Pitching Triple Crown seasons that have followed Dwight Gooden’s 1985 (and yes, it is now seven, with Kershaw’s PTC).

Should Justin Verlander Win the AL MVP?

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the MVP vote as of late, particularly in the AL. And that’s good; there are a ton of worthy candidates. Jacoby Ellsbury is having a breakout year; Jose Bautista is continuing his breakout success from last year; Curtis Granderson has been leading a Yankees team that has the best record in the league; Adrian Gonzalez and Miguel Cabrera have been raking at first base; there are at least four playoff contenders with second basemen in the discussion (Ian Kinsler, Dustin Pedroia, Robinson Cano, and Ben Zobrist all stand out); and so on.

One candidate has really seen his case pick up steam, though: Tiger’s ace Justin Verlander. Should he be the league’s Most Valuable Player, though?