I haven't had a chance to write lately but I needed to chime in with something quickly. I've heard a lot of Adrian Gonzalez MVP talk. The latest came this morning in a Nick Cafardo column, where he mixes in this little beauty (my bold).
Nice first half, Ortiz, Jacoby Ellsbury, AL first-half MVP Adrian Gonzalez, Daniel Bard, Jon Lester, Josh Beckett, and Jonathan Papelbon.
Sometimes I think Boston, and especially its sports culture, gets a bad rap for being extraordinarily provincial. Then I read something like the excerpt above and think "how could anyone ever suggest differently?" Someone in the very same division as the Red Sox is putting up numbers we haven't seen since Barry Bonds was playing. Let's just do a quick Gonzalez - Jose Bautista comp.
fWAR: Bautista 6.6, Gonzalez 4.8
bWAR: Bautista 6.6, Gonzalez 4.9
wOBA: Bautista .487, Gonzalez .429
Triple Slash: Bautista .334/.468/.702, Gonzalez .354/.414/.591
wRC+: Bautista 215, Gonzalez 172
And on and on and on. The gulf here goes way beyond the painfully idiotic "MVP's can only come from playoff teams" debate, too. Gonzalez is having an MVP-caliber season, sure, but to suggest he's the MVP is to ignore the player who is currently far and away baseball's best.