MVP and Cy Young voting has become automatic, and it sucks

No first place votes for Witt?

Yesterday, the results of the American League Most Valuable Player award were released to the public. As expected, Aaron Judge won, and as expected, Bobby Witt Jr. was the runner-up.

Both had incredible seasons, and there were arguments for both players to be the MVP. Judge led the league in Wins Above Replacement in both Fangraphs’ and Baseball-Reference’s version. Additionally, Judge’s offensive output was historic. His 218 wRC+ is the sixth-highest figure since World War II ended. Meanwhile, Witt also put up a 10 WAR season. Whereas Judge’s value rests mostly on his bat, Witt was simply the best overall player in the game this year—a true five-tool player who was a great hitter, a great fielder, and a great baserunner.

But voters did not see it is as a competition. The results were unanimous: all 30 voters chose Judge over Witt.

Now, no Royals fan should be mad that Judge won. At the end of the day, Judge put in one of the greatest offensive seasons of all time, and voters awarded him for it. Witt had chances to make it particularly interesting, but his pedestrian (for him) .275/.359/.425 triple slash over his last 92 plate appearances allowed Judge to widen the gap between them.

For no one to vote for Witt at all, though? No one? It’s disappointing. The MVP award is not the “Most Best Player” award. By including the word “valuable,” it invites at least some discussion on the definition of the word. Do we mean value overall? Do we mean value to the team? Do we mean most impactful?

If it’s the latter two, Witt laps Judge. The World Series was a pretty good indication that Judge is a liability in center field, and that’s without getting to the baserunning equation. And as far as team value, look: the Royals won 86 games. Without Witt, they are nowhere near even being a winning team.

Ah, but Judge wins the WAR, and that’s the key here. Witt is close. But he didn’t accumulate the most Wins Above Replacement. Judge did, so it’s no contest.

This has become a pattern. Over in the National League, Shohei Ohtani, the WAR leader, was the unanimous winner of the NL MVP. In the AL, the Cy Young voting was also unanimous, with Tarik Skubal, the WAR leader, winning over Seth Lugo. Last year, Ohtani won the AL MVP unanimously, Ronald Acuna Jr. won the NL MVP unanimously, and Gerrit Cole won the AL Cy Young unanimously. All three were the WAR leaders.

Put it this way: over the last two years, 240 votes were cast for MVP or Cy Young contests. Only six of those 240 first place votes were for a player who wasn’t the WAR leader.

I don’t mind that really good players are winning, and I’m not saying that the results aren’t valid. But it just sucks that it’s so automatic. The WAR winner wins Cy Young or MVP unless there’s a high-profile star who does well enough, and there’s rarely anybody willing to stick their necks out for someone.

Maybe that’s ok. One definition of “valuable” is, well, overall value. But if everyone is just going to give it to the guys with the highest calculated value, we should just let the computers crown the winners on the last day of the season and avoid the suspense.