Is Verlander an MVP Candidate?

Justin Verlander became the league's first 19 game winner last night after tossing 7 innings of 3-hit ball with 8 strikeouts against the Tampa Bay Rays. Verlander is now 19-5 with a 2.28 ERA (2nd in the league) and leads the league with 212 strikeouts. More importantly, the Tigers, currently 5 games up on the Indians atop the AL Central, have won 20 of the 28 games that he has started and Detroit actually has a sub-.500 record when someone other than Verlander is on the mound. As a result Justin Verlander's name has been tossed around in the MVP conversation which has sparked a great deal of debate.

It's not unprecedented for a pitcher to win the MVP award, but it certainly isn't common. Over the past 40 years, the award has been won by a pitcher 5 times: Dennis Eckersly (1992), Roger Clemens (1986), Willie Hernandez (1984), Rollie Fingers (1981) and Vida Blue (1971). All five pitchers were in the American League. To find the last NL MVP who was a pitcher you have to go all the way back to 1968 when both the AL and NL MVP awards were won by pitchers. Bob Gibson was the recipient of the NL MVP Award that year with 31-game winner Denny McLain winning the award for the AL. How does Verlander's season compare to the past winners?

Interestingly enough, Eckersly, Hernandez and Fingers were all closers when they won the award. So only two starting pitchers have won the MVP Award since 1970. Clemens won the award at age 23 when he was 24-4 with a 2.48 ERA and 238 strike outs. Blue was only 21 when he won the award in 1971, but went 24-8 with a 1.82 ERA, 301 strike outs, 24 complete games and 8 shutouts. Verlander's numbers certainly are comparable, but think of some of the great seasons in recent years by pitchers that DIDN'T win the award. In 1995 Greg Maddux was 19-2 with a 1.63 ERA, but he finished 3rd in the MVP voting that year. In 1999 Pedro Martinez was 23-4 with a 2.07 ERA, but struck out an absurd 313 hitters in just 213 1/3 innings. Still, he was unable to finish better than second in the MVP voting losing out to Ivan Rodriguez. Bob Welch won 27 games for the A's in 1990, but only finished 9th.

So back to Verlander. The one thing he has going for him is that there isn't really a clear-cut MVP among the AL's position players. Jose Bautista is hitting .315 with 36 home runs and 80 runs batted in, but his case is hurt by the fact that he plays for Toronto (4th place in the AL East). Both the Yankees and Redsox have candidates: Curtis Granderson (.279 35 HR 98 RBI 24 SB) and Mark Teixeira (.248 34 HR 95 RBI) for New York and Adrian Gonzalez (.346 20 HR 97 RBI) and Jacoby Ellsbury (.312 22 HR 79 RBI 34 SB) for Boston. While all four have produced big numbers, they'll be hurt by the fact that they play for the same team and risk stealing votes from one another.

Suffice it to say, how Verlander pitches down the stretch, and how Detroit finishes will go along way in determining Verlander's candidacy. If he wins his last six or seven starts and finishes with 25 or 26 wins, and none of the other candidates do anything to distance themselves from the pack, it will certainly improve his chances. Still, it's possible that Verlander could do everything right and still not win the award. In 1999 during Pedro Martinez's MVP-type season, two of the voters didn't even include Martinez on their ballot ultimately costing him the award. The fact of the matter, fair or unfair, is that not everyone believes pitchers should be eligible to win the award believing instead that the Cy Young Award alone should honor their performance. With that mindset it is very difficult for any pitcher to win and that's what Verlander will have to overcome. We'll see what Verlander does over the final weeks of the season and where everyone stands when all the pennant races conclude. Stay tuned!