The Baseball Writers’ Association of America pared down the list of American League MVP candidates to Lorenzo Cain, Josh Donaldson and Mike Trout, and Donaldson secured the coveted hardware Thursday night to close out a compelling race.
Major League Baseball’s official Twitter account relayed confirmation of the BBWAA’s selection, while Bleacher Report congratulated the 29-year-old on his honor.
A complete look at the 2015 AL MVP voting can be viewed below, courtesy of BBWAA.com:
According to MLB Communications on Twitter, Donaldson joined George Bell as the only Blue Jays players to win MVP. MLB Communications added that Trout, Barry Bonds, Yogi Berra and Stan Musial are the only players to finish in the top two of MVP voting four years in a row.
The Blue Jays won the AL East in 2015, and Donaldson was a major reason why. Not only was his production gaudy, but it also came at the perfect time, as Toronto surged through the season’s second half en route to the franchise’s first division title since 1993.
Overall, Donaldson clubbed a career-high 41 home runs and drove in an MLB-best 123 RBI. Toronto’s third baseman also batted a rock-solid .297 while totaling a .568 slugging percentage, which was the best mark of his career by nearly 70 points.
“He does everything,” Chicago White Sox manager Robin Ventura said, per the Associated Press (via USA Today). “He hits for power, he gets on base, he plays defense. There’s just a lot of things to like about him as a player. And knowing that Toronto hasn’t been in there the last few years, he goes over in his first year and they just become a different-looking team.”
Following the All-Star break, Donaldson was simply brilliant. According to Baseball-Reference.com, Donaldson posted a .302 batting average, .615 slugging percentage and 1.011 OPS over the season’s second half. The MVP was particularly absurd in August, when he batted .324 while the Blue Jays posted a 21-6 record over a crucial late-season stretch.
Considering Donaldson smashed his previous career-bests from power and run-production standpoints, it’s no wonder he was able to throttle to the head of the MVP pack in conjunction with the Blue Jays’ run up the standings.
And therein lies one of the components that separated Donaldson from Trout. Although Trout posted arguably the gaudiest overall stat line in baseball, Donaldson put up his numbers for a team that was in the title conversation through September and into October.
An American League Championship Series loss to the Kansas City Royals hurt, but by that point, Donaldson’s true worth was established and reinforced several times over.
Keeping pace with Trout in the coming years will be difficult for the soon-to-be 30-year-old, but Donaldson’s 2015 campaign was a revelation for a Toronto team on the rise.
Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com