Sorry, Red Sox fans, but three legitimate MVP candidates just wasn't enough to overcome the awesome that is Jose Bautista. Jacoby Ellsbury came very, very close, but he was the only one, as Dustin Pedroia finished sixth, while Adrian Gonzalez's highest vote was a fifth-place one.
| Num | Name | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jose Bautista | 10 | 9 | 2 | 2 | 211 | ||||||
| 2 | Jacoby Ellsbury | 7 | 9 | 3 | 3 | 196 | ||||||
| 3 | Miguel Cabrera | 2 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 164 | |||
| 4 | Curtis Granderson | 1 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 143 | ||
| 5 | Justin Verlander | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 130 | ||
| 6 | Dustin Pedroia | 1 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 86 | |||
| 7 | Ian Kinsler | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 74 | ||
| 8 | Adrian Gonzalez | 2 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 57 | ||||
| 9 | Evan Longoria | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 51 | |||||
| 10 | Alex Gordon | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 33 | ||||
| 11 | Robinson Cano | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 32 | ||||
| 12 | Alex Avila | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 25 | |||||
| 13 | CC Sabathia | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 24 | ||||||
| 14 | Ben Zobrist | 2 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 23 | ||||||
| 15 | Adrian Beltre | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 23 | |||||
| 16 | Michael Young | 1 | 1 | 1 | 14 | |||||||
| 17 | Mike Napoli | 1 | 1 | 12 | ||||||||
| 18 | Paul Konerko | 2 | 6 | |||||||||
| 19 | Jered Weaver | 1 | 1 | 4 | ||||||||
| 20 | Elvis Andrus | 1 | 3 | |||||||||
| 21 | James Shields | 2 | 2 | |||||||||
| 22 | David Ortiz | 1 | 2 | |||||||||
| 23 | Victor Martinez | 1 | 2 | |||||||||
| 24 | Brett Gardner | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| 25 | Dan Haren | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| 26 | Mark Texeira | 1 | 1 |
Personally, I voted for Ellsbury as MVP, but my own ballot doesn't look very different from the actual top 10 results. It was a tight race, and either Ellsbury or Bautista were fine choices for the virtual hardware.
My favorite part of this might actually be that 26 different players received votes from 24 writers. The 2011 season had some pretty memorable campaigns from many players, and it's crazy to think that two points total for someone like James Shields feels both accurate and like nowhere near enough. It was very clear, though, looking at the distribution of first- and second-place votes, who the favorites were among SB Nation's American League bloggers, though.