Byron Buxton wins 18th Most Valuable Player in the AL award

The MLB awards season has been good to the Twins’ Byron Buxton, who has won the Rawlings Gold Glove Award for AL center field, the Wilson Award for Best Defensive Player in Baseball, and the Rawlings Platinum Glove Award — but that’s not all! Buxton has done it once again, winning the award for the 18th best MVP in the American League. This is a real award.

Buxton achieved this win by receiving one vote for 7th place, one vote for 9th place, and one vote for 10th place in MVP voting, which apparently gave him seven overall points and ranked him 18th in AL MVP voting. Considering how just earlier this year people were debating about whether Byron Buxton was a bust, I feel like an 18th place finish in MVP voting is absolutely fantastic.

Buxton only hit .253/.314/.413 with 16 home runs, 6 “show-off” doubles, 14 actual doubles, and 29 stolen bases — but he played absolutely remarkable defense all year.

Heck, maybe he should have been even higher! Just take a look at some of these other yahoos who finished higher than Buxton: Jose Abreu (14th place), Justin Upton (16th place), and some guy named... Brian Dozier? He ended up in 11th place in AL MVP voting, earning one 5th place vote, one 6th place vote, one 7th place vote, three 8th place votes, and one 10th place vote for a total of 25 points.

As for the first place winners, those came out just as expected: the the Astros’ Jose Altuve won the AL award (405 total points), and the Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton won the NL award (302 total points — just narrowly beating the Reds’ Joey Votto, who received 300 points).

You can check out the BBWAA’s full results for the AL MVP voting here, and their full results for the NL MVP voting here.