Pete Crow-Armstrong’s MVP win was already a formality, but one ballot from the voting process has turned into the real talking point.
The Cubs center fielder took home the award last night, and the result itself wasn’t the surprise. What stood out this morning was how the National League ballot was filled out - especially when it came to the Braves.
Chris Sale, Matt Olson, and Michael Harris II all picked up MVP votes, which makes sense on some level. Sale finished as a top-three pitcher in the NL Cy Young race.
Olson hit 41 home runs and was the best first baseman in the sport. Harris, as the source put it, was probably the best player on the entire team.
Then there was Ozzie Albies.
Rick Cerrone of Baseball Digest ranked Albies as the sixth most valuable player in the National League, a choice that immediately raised eyebrows. As one post reacting to the ballot put it: "I would like for you all to look at that 2nd Pittsburgh voter’s ballot because oh my lord"
Cerrone’s ballot didn’t stop there. He also had Matt Olson third, ahead of Shohei Ohtani, but Albies landing on the board at all was the part that really turned heads.
That’s especially hard to square with how Albies’ season actually went. He got off to a strong start, but after that early hot stretch, he hit .210 with a .610 OPS over his final 125 games.
The argument here isn’t that Albies hasn’t been a strong player over the years - he has been. It’s that this particular season was not one of his best, and certainly not one that screams top-six MVP finish.
Cerrone also placed Schwarber second, despite a season that ended with 2.6 WAR. That kind of ballot is exactly why the reaction has been so sharp. If the vote had mattered in a tighter race, it would have sparked a much bigger firestorm.
The bigger issue, at least from this reaction, is accountability. The argument is simple: voters should be held to a higher standard, and ballots like this don’t help anyone trust the process.
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