Stats don't lie: Justin Verlander makes a case for MVP

By Tony Paul, Detroit News

DETROIT – No pitcher has been named league MVP since Oakland A's closer Dennis Eckersley in 1992.

And it's been even longer for a starting pitcher: Roger Clemens in 1986.
So, why the decades-long drought? A couple of reasons.

For starters, it's tough for some to fathom that the most valuable player of any ballclub, let alone an entire league, is a guy who doesn't play every day, or almost every day, or at least more than every fifth day. Then there are those stubborn Baseball Writers Association of America voters — full disclosure: I am one — who see the Cy Young as prize enough for pitchers.

Well, this year, it's not enough. Not even close.

Tigers ace Justin Verlander will win the American League Cy Young. He also should be the MVP.

Just think for a moment about where the Tigers would really be without him.
Certainly, they wouldn't be in first place in the AL Central, three games up on the Indians with 40 games to go. Heck, they'd probably be at least a distant third, watching the Indians and White Sox duke it out.

A stretch? Don't think so. Just consider these numbers:

* The Tigers are 19-8 when he pitches, 46-49 when he doesn't. They've won 17 of his last 20 starts.

* Verlander is 10-1 with a 2.38 ERA against the AL Central, after Tuesday's victory over the Twins.

* Verlander: 18-5, 2.31 ERA. Rest of Detroit's starters: 33-37, 4.88 ERA.

* He's accounted for a whopping 19 percent of the entire staff's innings, yet just 10 percent of the earned runs, 11 percent of the walks and 13 percent of the hits. Twenty-five percent of the K's are his.

* He's 14-2 with a sub-2.00 ERA following a Tigers loss. Three of his wins have come after the Tigers lost two games in a row, and two of his wins have stopped three-game losing streaks.

And all that doesn't even take into account all Verlander's personal accomplishments, like the no-hitter; the two near no-hitters; the All-Star Game that he would've started had he been allowed to; and the league-leading 18 wins, 204 strikeouts and 0.88 WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched).

(For all we know, he might've even single-handedly saved Jim Leyland and Dave Dombrowski's jobs. Not that that's an argument come award season.)

What other player in the AL can claim to be so critical to a team's bottom line? If you took Dustin Pedroia or Jacoby Ellsbury or Adrian Gonzalez off the Red Sox, or Curtis Granderson off the Yankees, it's a good bet you'd still see the two AL East powers waltzing into the playoffs. And if you took Jose Bautista off the Blue Jays, well, that team still wouldn't make the playoffs. To be fair, several arguments made for Verlander apply to Angels ace Jered Weaver, too, but Los Angeles' playoff hopes recently have tanked as fast as Weaver lost his cool in Detroit late last month.

MVP awards often go to players on playoff-bound teams, or at least contenders. And the Tigers are contending for the ballclub's first division championship since 1987. Yet, imagine if you plucked Verlander off the team and said, "There, try that." That wouldn't be a pretty picture.

He limits losing streaks, keeps the bullpen fresh and beats the rivals. He's dominant. He's indispensable.

He's Detroit's MVP, no doubt, in a landslide. And he just might be the league's, too.

If that actually happens — it's no slam dunk, because, again, voters are conditioned to make the MVP the MVPP (most valuable position player) — Verlander would follow an interesting pattern. Because, as rare as it is for pitchers to win the MVP, the last four Tigers MVPs have been pitchers: Willie Hernandez (1984), Denny McLain (1968) and Hal Newhouser (1944-45). A Detroit position player hasn't won the award since Hank Greenberg in 1940, though there've been close calls (Alan Trammell, Cecil Fielder, etc.).

At this rate, Justin Verlander figures to make eight more starts in 2011 — and if he manages to win most of them or even all of them, he'll put the finishing touches on one of the greatest pitching seasons in Tigers history.