2006 MVPs, ROYs, and Best Nines Announced

Nothing against Ogasawara, but what more does Saitoh have to do to win a MVP? I guess a year where Saitoh led the PL in most pitching categories and won the Sawamura Award weren't enough. I'm sorry, Ogasawara had a great year, not taking anything from him, but Saitoh deserves this award.

If you look at the votes, you'll find that a majority of the people who voted for the MVP award agreed with you.

Player     1st 2nd 3rd Total
Ogasawara   74  60  19  569
Saitoh      82  37  28  549

Source: Nikkan Sports, November 15, 2006, paper edition.

The third place finisher (Matsuzaka) had a total of 136 points, a very distant third from Ogasawara and Saitoh.

Anyway, as you can see, Saitoh had the most first place votes for the MVP award, with Ogasawara a close second. With second place votes, Saitoh had just more than half what Ogasawara gathered, Matsuzaka getting 28, and Micheal getting 24. Matsuzaka took most of the third place votes with 42.

Votes are scored 5 points for first, 3 points for second, and 1 point for third.

The large number of first place votes for a player on a non-championship team came as a surprise to me. Many of the voters use the second and third place votes for players on teams that don't win the league, reserving their first place votes for the champion. I guess that the playoffs have had an effect in eliminating that thinking to a degree.