This was a pleasant surprise.  Justin Verlander was very deserving and I think this was as much a symptom of the late season collapse by the Red Sox then anything with the voters penchant towards excluding pitchers.  In a bizarre vote, Verlander took thirteen of the 28 first place votes but he also got an eighth place vote and wasn’t put on one person’s ballot at all.  Jaboby Ellsbury came in second place and Jose Bautista came in third.  Someone had Jose Bautista in ninth and that’s also a joke.

Other Tigers to get votes were Miguel Cabrera (fifth place, with two first place votes and he was actually named on all 28 ballots), Alex Avila (who was on six ballots with seventh his best showing) and Victor Martinez (four ballots, highest showing was eighth place).  David Robertson actually picked up a tenth place vote and oddly, Jered Weaver, who came in second place in the Cy Young, wasn’t on a single ballot.

Former Tiger Curtis Granderson came in fourth place.  Verlander is the first pitcher since Dennis Eckersley to win the win the award and the first starter since Roger Clemens in 1986.  He’s the first Tiger to win the award since 1984 but the Tigers have had their share of second places finishers since then with Alan Trammell, Cecil Fielder, Magglio Ordonez and Miguel Cabrera all being the runner up at one point.

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