It has been a wonderful season thus far and many players have had spectacular years. About this time of the season people begin to speculate who have been the best players for that particular season. This speculation precipitates an annual debate about determing the Most Valuable Player Award. In that debate, there is great divide over what determines who is the player who is most valuable and whether or not they should be a member of a winning team. I think there are 8 players whose performance stands out enough that they warrant consideration for this award.

AL MVP Frontrunners(as of 8/15)

Player G .BA .OPS HR RBI Runs RP(runs+RBI) %RP

Guerrero 113 .325 .941 25 89 89 178 15.5

Mora 94 .345 1.022 21 75 84 159 13.4

Ortiz 108 .311 .995 30 105 65 170 13.2

Hafner 108 .320 1.013 23 91 76 167 12.9

Guillen 115 .315 .926 17 83 83 166 13.8

Sheffield 113 .292 .928 27 85 91 176 13.8

Texeira 99 .265 .906 28 72 73 145 12.1

Ramirez 109 .317 1.024 30 87 73 160 12.4

The %RP is the percentage of the players runs + RBI/Team total of runs + RBI.

Runs Produced and the % of the teams total Runs Produced are a somewhat crude statistics but they are simple ways to make comparisons to the players values to their team. I believe the media would suggest Vlad Guerrero would be the frontrunner for the award and I would have to agree. I think Gary Sheffield is a very close 2nd. Unfortunately for Ortiz and Ramirez they sort of cancel each other out being from the same team. Guerrero has carried a team who has suffered from a number of injuries and has been very consistent all year. Sheffield is surrounded by a lot of good hitters but he has played through an injury all season and performed very well through it all. I like seeing Guillen’s stats in this, as a point of comparison. I think if the Tigers had a candidate, it would be Pudge but that would be based on sentiment and name recognition over actual performance. Melvin Mora continues to surprise people who doubted his talents and continues to prove he is among the best players in baseball.

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