Baltimore Orioles and Manny Machado in MVP Voting
By Nate Wardle
Sep 16, 2015; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Orioles third baseman Manny Machado (13) throws the ball to first base in the first inning against the Boston Red Sox at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Mandatory Credit: Evan Habeeb-USA TODAY Sports
The Baltimore Orioles may not have won many awards this year, but you can’t say they were neglected.
The American League MVP went to Josh Donaldson, who received 23 of 30 first place votes. Mike Trout finished second, garnering the other seven first place votes. In fact, only one person other than Donaldson and Trout received a second place vote, and that was Nelson Cruz.
Manny Machado finished fourth, receiving four third place votes, 11 fourth place votes and five fifth place votes.
The third place votes came from Even Drellich and Jesus Ortiz, both of the Houston Chronicle, and Tim Brown and Pedro Moura, who vote on behalf of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for Yahoo Sports and the Orange County Register respectively.
Fourth place votes came from both Oriole representatives, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports and Rich Dubroff of CSN Mid-Atlantic, both Red Sox representatives, both Kansas City representatives, both Toronto representatives, and one each of the Twins, Rays and Mariners.
One writer representing each of Cleveland, New York and Texas did not vote for Machado.
Manny appeared in all 162 games for the O’s, hitting .286/.359/.502, the best slash line of his career. He added a whopping 35 home runs, more than he had in his three previous seasons combined. However, two of those seasons he played in considerably less games, his first in the majors in 2012 and 2014, where he missed time due to injury.
Injury was a concern for Manny entering the season. He was coming off knee surgery, and everyone wondered how it would affect him. It certainly did not offensively, or running, as Manny stole 20 bases, his first season with more than six.
It did seem to affect him a little defensively at the beginning of the season, as Machado made most of his errors in the first 40 games. However, as the season went on he proved why he is a Gold Glove fielder.
The 23-year-old will likely be an MVP candidate, and a likely favorite, in the years to come for the Baltimore Orioles.