I can only speak on how valuable Verlander is to the Tigers. No Justin Verlander and the Tigers aren't making the playoffs, no way, no how. He doesn't only impact the games he's playing in but he's saving the bullpen, he's stopping losing streaks, he's taking pressure off of the offense.

Yes, he's my favorite player and of course I want him to win but I wouldn't have had a problem with someone else taking it either because I understand the argument that someone who is not an everyday player cannot be as valuable, but I don't think there's anyway you can diminish what he's done this year.

My favorite stat: Only A.L. pitcher with at least 24 wins and 250 Ks, with ERA of 2.40 or lower, since the advent of the DH in 1973.

Here's an ESPN article from sometime back giving Verlander's MVP credentials:

• He has stopped 16 losing streaks. Yeah, 16. He's 16-3 after a Tigers loss, and that's just about unheard of on a team this good. Who is the last pitcher to stop 16 losing streaks on a first-place team? The Elias Sports Bureau reports that it's Sandy Koufax, who went 16-4 after a loss for the 1966 Dodgers.

• Since the end of April, Justin Verlander has gone 22-2. Yeah, 22-2 (with a 2.00 ERA). And one of the losses came in a 1-0 game. He's 13-1 against the rest of his division in that span (14-1 overall). And, in his past 26 starts, since May 2, his team has gone 23-3 when he started. The Tigers were five games under .500 when that stretch began. They're 24 over now. So it has been those 4½ months that essentially have been their season. And when you're running a pitcher this unbeatable out there, it's like starting that season 20 games over .500. Think it's some fluky coincidence that their longest losing streak since Memorial Day is two games?

We could quit right there and rest our case that this man has had a massive ripple effect on everyone around him. But consider everything he has done to take the heat off his bullpen:

• Verlander has thrown more pitches (3,821) than any other pitcher in the major leagues. And only Jered Weaver (3,629) is even within 250 of him.

• This guy has made 19 starts in which he got at least one out in the eighth inning (or beyond). No one in either league has made more -- and only James Shields has matched him.

• And despite that marathon-man workload, Verlander has held opposing hitters to a ridiculous .190/.240/.308 stat line -- while facing 938 hitters. Know how many pitchers in the division-play era have beaten that stat line in a season when they had to deal with that many hitters? Exactly one -- Don Sutton in 1972.

We could keep going here, but you get the picture. Then again, so do we. We understand that to make the argument that this man is qualified to win the MVP award, we don't just have to prove he's been a dominator. Heck, that's the easy part.


http://espn.go.com/mlb/st...tin-verlander-win-al-mvp

Edited By: Manda2119 11/21/2011 8:37 PM. Edited 1 times.