No Yankees Players Receive MVP Votes for 2016 Season

On Thursday evening the BBWA revealed that, for just the second time in the last 20 years, the New York Yankees were completely shut out of the MVP voting.

While no New York Yankees players were serious contenders for the award, it still came as a slight surprise to see that no Bombers managed to snag a down-ballot vote from Baseball Association of America writers in the voting for the 2016 American League MVP.

I would have bet that Gary Sanchez‘s second half heroics or Masahiro Tanaka‘s pole to pole dominance would have warranted a ninth or tenth place vote from a biased New York writer, but apparently not. 2016 marks just the second time since 1992 that no Yankees player has appeared on an MVP ballot.

Amazingly, the winner this year was the guy who actually deserved it. Statheads had prepared themselves for another fun bout of complaining about Mike Trout being undeservedly penalized for playing on a bad team, but the voters came through and made the right choice this year. Progress.

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It makes it even more satisfying that the guy he beat out was a member of the rival Red Sox, Mookie Betts. The Boston outfielder did manage to steal nine first-place votes from the greatest baseball player on the planet, but the Millville Meteor still will take home his second career MVP award at just age 25. It really should be his fifth, but I’ll settle for a victory this year.

Trout put up a .315/.441/.550 slash line with 29 home runs and 30 stolen bases (frustratingly close to 30-30!) in 681 plate appearances. He led the league in OBP, walks, runs, and OPS+. He was worth 10.6 wins above replacement according to Baseball-Reference, just short of his 10.8 WAR career-high in 2012. After just five full seasons in the big leagues, he has an incredible 48.5 WAR, which is most of the way towards a Hall of Fame career. The man is a national treasure.

He was worth 10.6 wins above replacement according to Baseball-Reference, just short of his 10.8 WAR career-high in 2012. After just five full seasons in the big leagues, he has an incredible 48.5 WAR, which is most of the way towards a Hall of Fame career. The man is a national treasure.

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While the Yankees have shut out of the major awards every year since Alex Rodriguez‘s 2007 MVP, that seems likely to change given the number of exciting young players the team has breaking into the big leagues. The odds are pretty good that one of Gary Sanchez, Clint Frazier, Gleyber Torres, and Aaron Judge have an MVP season in them at some point over the next decade.