First Half Award Winners

I'm not in the mood to write up a post on an 8-0 loss to the Yankees that I didn't even watch, so instead I'm going to finally (after two days of promising it) write up my First Half award winners. However, it's late and I'm not going to get the whole thing up until tomorrow. Until then, here's my pick for AL MVP -- I'll be posting my NL MVP and both league's Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, and Manager of the Year picks tomorrow sometime during the day.

AL MVP

1. Alex Rodriguez (NYY)
2. Magglio Ordonez (DET)
3. Vladimir Guerrero (LAA)

Come back to me again in September/October, and I might change my mind on this one. I significantly discount the contributions of players who do not help a team make it into the post-season -- not so much that it's impossible for me to support a guy on a losing team for MVP, but enough that that player must be putting together a season that is significantly better than everyone else. At this point, Alex Rodriguez may be playing for a losing team, but he's also having a ridiculous season. At last count, Rodriguez had a very respectable .322 batting average and a league leading 1.091 OPS. He also leads the league in runs scored (74 -- 9 more than second place), RBI (80 -- 7 more than second place), and homeruns (28 -- 8 more than second place). I'm not a fan of strikeouts, and he's struck out 66 times in 298 at-bats -- but with that kind of run production it really doesn't matter. A-Rod is clearly having the best season in the American League, and he deserves to be #1 on this list right now, even with the sub-.500 discout. Magglio Ordonez (.369/1.061/65R/68RBI/13HR) is a very solid second place, and if his numbers were a little closer to A-Rod's, I might give him 1st place just because his team is in playoff position. He's just not quite there, though. Vlad Guerrero gets my third place vote largely due to his high average (.328), 3rd highest league OPS (.987), and 2nd highest RBI totals (73).