Clayton Kershaw: Crackerjacks 2014 National League MVP
Sep 2, 2014; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw (22) follows though on a single in the fifth inning against the Washington Nationals at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Our National League Cy Young Award vote wasn’t controversial or difficult. The top honor went to Clayton Kershaw in unanimous fashion.
The National League MVP voting was a lot more difficult. No matter how dominant the season, it’s always difficult to give that award to a pitcher. While that traditionally doesn’t happen, the Crackerjacks have spoken. Clayton Kershaw is our National League MVP.
Just as a reminder, this is what Kershaw did in his brilliant 2014 season.
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Now, you’ve seen the numbers and we have already gone over how great Kershaw was in our Cy Young announcement linked above. Here, let’s go over the vote, which will show just how much respect some of our voters had for Kershaw’s season.
Four of the Crackerjacks voted on all of these awards. We were allowed to vote for three guys in each award, with the top guy getting 4 points, second place guy getting 2 points, and the third place guy getting 1. Two of our four voters voted Kershaw as the top guy. One of the remaining two voted him second.
The other, me, left him off the ballot altogether. That’s not a knock on Kershaw in any way, I just don’t feel like pitchers should win MVP awards for two reasons.
- They have their own award.
- They only play in 20 percent of the team’s games. In Kershaw’s case, it was actually fewer than that.
But while I don’t agree with the voting, I have no objection to how the other guys voted. The people clearly spoke. Kershaw was good enough to win the MVP while being completely left off of one ballot. Considering there were only four voters, that’s pretty significant.
So who finished second? That would be Giancarlo Stanton of the Miami Marlins, who himself had a brilliant season.
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Maybe if he played on a better team, Stanton would have gotten the vote. Maybe if he got to play the final few weeks, he would have gotten the vote. As it was, he only lost by one.
But the speculation doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Clayton Kershaw is your Crackerjacks 2014 NL MVP.