Felix Hernandez finishes ahead of Corey Kluber in MVP vote

Here’s an interesting wrinkle in MLB end-of-season award voting: Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners finished 10th in American League MVP vote, announced Thursday. Corey Kluber of the Cleveland Indians finished 11th, three points behind King Felix.

A day earlier, Kluber edged Hernandez for the AL Cy Young. It was the closest vote of award season, as Kluber won the award by just 10 votes. One more first-place vote and second-place vote for King Felix would have changes the result, it was that close. Kluber’s win was something of an upset too, as Hernandez is the bigger star and was the favorite most of the season, until Kluber finished stronger.

More than anything, the MVP vote shows just how close the Cy Young race in the AL really was. The two awards have different voters, meaning a panel of 30 other baseball writers thought Hernandez was more valuable to his team than Kluber was. But just barely, let’s consult the official vote tally. 

Hernandez earned two second-place votes, which helped him finish ahead of Kluber, who ranked no higher than third on any of the 30 ballots. Mike Trout was the unanimous winner.

This doesn’t mean Kluber doesn’t deserve his award or was the wrong pick. The difference between 10th place and 11th place in the MVP vote really, wouldn’t matter if the same two guys hadn’t just flip-flopped in a different vote the other day. 

It was written by many pundits that neither Hernandez or Kluber was a wrong choice for Cy Young. That’s so true that a different panel of voters might have returned a different result. 

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Mike Oz is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz