Justin Verlander is the first starting pitcher since 1986 to win the AL MVP, but earlier in the week Curtis talked about the great season that JV had here so I’m not going to repeat the same story.  The real issue I have is looking at the voting results.

One of the writers from Cleveland placed JV eighth, while another kept JV off his ballot completely, which is an absolute travesty.  A writer in Texas gave his first place vote to Michael Young who, in my opinion, isn’t even in the top-5 most important player on his own team.

Something needs to change in the way that voting happens for the MVP and Cy Young to make sure that rival cities aren’t sand-bagging each others candidates.  A few alternate options include having writers from the opposite league vote for MVP and Cy Young.

Another option would be having the players vote, but that may raise the same issues as the writers voting.

The final solution I came up with would be for any writer who leaves the winner outside of the top-seven on the ballot would be stripped of the ability to vote.  Bringing some sort of accountability to the writers would make the votes more about the best player, and not about holding some sort of grudge.