There is a lot of debate going on right now about who will or who should win the AL MVP Award this year, and I won't go into my opinions much because most anyone who's reading this probably thinks, like I do, that Alex Rodriguez should get it, and because others have already written as much or more than I would. In particular, Rob Neyer, makes a great case for why A-Rod is the best player and therefore (not but) should win the MVP. Most of us "enlightened" budding or experienced sabremetricians probably all agree on that, but the real question is, "Who will win the MVP?"

The answer is fairly simple: Whomever Peter Gammons says should win it will win it. Last year, though he eventually settled on Jason Giambi as the MVP, I seem to recall him indicating that Ichiro was a deserving candidate, at least for a while. Two years ago, despite the fact that Carlos Delgado had more runs, more doubles, and slightly higher averages than Giambi's (.344/.470/.664 compared to .333/.476/.647), Gammons went around telling anyone who would listen that Giambi was the MVP, and sure enough, they voted him in. This year Gammons is talking about how Miguel Tejada is the MVP, essentially because Aaron Myette, Chan Ho Park, John Rocker and Hideki Irabu all stink very much bad. So I wonder who's gonna win it this year....