BBA Awards, Part 5: Stan Musial

In the fifth and final part of this series, I'm offering my votes for the Stan Musial Award, the BBA's equivalent of the Most Valuable Player.

I wonder if it's just a huge coincidence that the BBA's founder is a St. Louis Cardinals fan and its Most Valuable Player award is named after Stan Musial? Not that he's not kinda worthy of the honor, but I'm just curious. Quite honestly, the award should be named after Barry Bonds, who won more than twice as many MVP awards as any other player in history.

But, I digress. It definitely isn't a coincidence that, just as the Willie Mays award was no contest, so is this one. That non-coincidence, of course, can be attributed to Mike Trout, who easily was the most outstanding and, therefore, most valuable player in all of baseball.

I decided to take the high road and vote Miguel Cabrera second, even though a sabermetric argument could be made for Robinson Cano, or even that Cabrera wasn't even the most valuable player on his own team. This, of course, makes me wonder how many petty real voters would consider bumping their candidate's primary competitor down? I'm sure it never happens. Right?

Stan Musial Award - AL

1. Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
2. Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers
3. Robinson Cano, New York Yankees
4. Adrian Beltre, Texas Rangers
5. Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers
6. David Price, Tampa Bay Rays
7. Chris Sale, Chicago White Sox
8. Alex Gordon, Kansas City Royals
9. Hiroki Kuroda, New York Yankees
10. Josh Reddick, Oakland Athletics

In the National League, it's a much, much tougher decision. The top five guys here are basically interchangeable, but I do consider some of the old school arguments, especially when it's virtually a tossup.

I'll let you fill in the blanks as to why that means Posey and Molina rank first and second, although I do think Posey stands out just a little from the rest of the candidates.

Stan Musial Award - NL

1. Buster Posey, San Francisco Giants
2. Yadier Molina, St. Louis Cardinals
3. Ryan Braun, Milwaukee Brewers
4. Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh Pirates
5. Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers
6. David Wright, New York Mets
7. Chase Headley, San Diego Padres
8. Jason Heyward, Atlanta Braves
9. Joey Votto, Cincinnati Reds
10. R.A. Dickey, New York Mets