Astros’ Jose Altuve takes home 2017 AL MVP award

Jose Altuve is the winner of the 2017 American League MVP award, as most expected he would be.

Houston Astros second baseman Jose Altuve recently got to hoist a World Series trophy, and now, he’ll get to hoist another award, this one belonging entirely to him. On Thursday, as the 2017 MLB postseason awards continue to roll in, Altuve was named the MVP of the American League this past season.

Altuve was nearly a runaway winner of the award, taking home 27 of the 30 first-place votes. Some believe the battle between him and New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge for this award might be a little tighter, but that didn’t turn out to be the case.

No one will question, though, that Altuve is the deserving winner of this award. In helping lead the Astros to 101 wins in the regular season and the first World Series win in franchise history, Altuve batted .346 with 24 home runs and 81 RBI. He was also a terror on the basepaths, stealing 32 total bases on the season.

Altuve also showed up when it mattered most in the postseason. Throughout the entire postseason run for the Astros which resulted in a World Series title, he smacked 7 home runs. His batting average wasn’t anything to write home about in the World Series win over the Los Angeles Dodgers at just .194, but it was phenomenal in the wins of the Boston Red Sox (.533) and the Yankees (.320). He was more than valuable when the chase for the championship was on.

Always the shortest man on the baseball diamond at just 5-foot-6, Altuve is one of the biggest terrors in the game of baseball right now, both at the plate and in the infield. There’s no telling how many more of these MVP awards he will take home in the future — which means some more titles for Houston could be in the cards as well.