Cue Nils' Man-Crush Anthem!

Just wanted to lob this one in the direction of Nils: Rob Neyer explains why Joe Mauer should have been AL MVP instead of Dustin Pedroia.

And "impossibly handsome sideburns" wasn't even part of his analysis!

Other than the thought of Nils high-fiving himself over the Mauer-love, this story is relatively uninteresting. The AL MVP was a total wash this year. Lots of pretty good candidates, but no one that really gets me excited. The more interesting part is looking to see which random dudes picked up MVP votes from the BBWAA.

My favorite was Jason Bartlett receiving a 5th-place vote (!!).

He missed 34 games, had an OPS+ of 82 (100 is league-AVERAGE), and he hit three fewer home runs this year than.... Carlos Zambrano.

Why not just totally mail it in and throw a vote Pavano's way?