The Yankees went into the 2011 season looking like underdogs, but by the end of the year they had the best record in the American League and finished second only to the Phillies for the best overall record.
Apparently they did it without the top rookie, manager, pitcher, or overall player. In fact, they weren’t even close as no Yankee finished even in the top three of any category.
Yesterday’s MVP announcement crowed Tigers’ starter Justin Verlander. The Yankees Curtis Granderson came the closest finishing in fourth place for that award. Robinson Cano finished sixth, CC Sabathia was 14th, Mark Teixeira 19th, and David Robertson came in 23rd.
Verlander also took the Cy Young with Sabathia finishing fourth. Mariano Rivera finished eighth for the Cy and D-Rob finished 11th. I expected Sabathia to come in second, but apparently the voters didn’t agree.
Yankees managers never get their recognition so I wasn’t surprised to see Joe Girardi come in fifth for the award despite the phenomenal job he did in the toughest division in the game. Nobody, nobody expected the Yankees to take the division this year and in the end it wasn’t even close.
Finally there was the Rookie of the Year award that went to the Rays Jeremy Hellickson. Ivan Nova finished fourth here which is fair considering he didn’t come on strong until the second half of the year. He probably came the closest to winning any of these awards as he at least got one first place vote.
In the end I wasn’t surprised that the Yankees didn’t get any of the awards. I wasn’t expecting them to. Although I would have voted for Joe Girardi considering how much he got out of the team that was expected to take a step back this year.
My question is, who was the most deserving snub?