Part 2: There Is No Anti-Yankees Bias in MVP Voting

by Paul Semendinger

November 17, 2025

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In order to understand this article series, it is important to first read Part One which describes the overall premise and some of the background.

In short, there are Yankees fans that believe that there is an anti-Yankees bias among the writers, decision makers, the league, or whomever, that is the reason that Yankees do not win certain awards. Each time a Yankee fails to get an honor that some fans think he deserves, these fans claim, "It's the anti-Yankees bias." This bias, it is claimed, exists and has existed for a very long time.

I am putting that notion to rest, once and for all, by showing clearly, with facts, that there is no anti-Yankees sentiment that causes Yankees to not win awards or the honors they deserve.

As I note in Part One, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to argue that Yankees don't win awards like the MVP when more Yankees have won the award, by a significant margin, than the players from any other team. Yankees players certainly and absolutely win awards.

Part One of this series demonstrated clearly, with facts, that New York Yankees players were considered for, and awarded, MVP Awards in the 2020s. That article showed that in this decade there is and has been no anti-Yankees bias in award giving.

Rather than going back year-by-year, as I did in Part One, I will now look at the other seasons this century where there was some discussion and/or debate regarding a Yankees player who should have won the MVP and did not. I'll also look at the years when a Yankees player did win the MVP.

The main thesis here is that while a Yankee didn't always win an award that some might have felt he deserved, that it was not because the writers or the league were conspiring against the Yankees. Rather than there being some anti-Yankees bias or conspiracy, there are times when award giving isn't always fair or accurate. Just because a player didn't win an honor of some sort, say the MVP, does not mean that the writers or the league or the sport conspired against the player or his team.

Also, while I used WAR here in the discussion, I understand it was not used in most of the seasons below. WAR is used here to see, retroactively, if the voters got it right or were at least in the ballpark...

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Part II - MVP "Controversy" in the 2000s.

2017 - Jose Altuve Wins Over Aaron Judge

This award is often Exhibit A in the "There is an anti-Yankees Bias" argument. The conspiracy theorists claim that Aaron Judge was robbed of this award by anti-Yankees sentiment.

Let's take a closer look...

When one considers WAR, what comes out first is the fact that both Jose Altuve and Aaron Judge tied in WAR in 2017 at 8.1 WAR. Taking that fact alone, Aaron Judge wasn't "robbed" of an MVP. Both players had great years.

Altuve led the league in hits and batting average.

Judge led the league in runs and home runs.

Altuve hit: .346/24/81

Judge hit: .284/52/114

Now, of note, Aaron Judge did win the Rookie of the Year Award that year. And while Rookies of the Year have won the MVP, that does not happen often. Also, the previous season, Jose Altuve finished 3rd in the MVP voting. This was the second consecutive year he had led the league in batting and the third of the last four. He was seen as a star. Judge might have been seen as a one-hit wonder. (Many Yankees fans were wondering this at the time as well.)

The fact that Altuve won was less any anti-Yankees sentiment. It was more the idea that the award voters saw Altuve, an excellent player, and one of the best in baseball, who had been a star for years and voted for him over the rookie. This conclusion makes much more sense than the idea that a cabal of writers joined to deny a worthy Yankees player of an award. That, simply, does not make any logical sense. Why would they decide this? And for what purpose?

The other argument the Yankees-Bias proponents claim is that Jose Altuve should have been retroactively stripped of his award because of the Houston Astros cheating scandal. I understand that argument from the case of righteous justice, but I am not aware of any instance where Major League Baseball has vacated an award for any cheating. As I have written many times before, the 1951 New York Giants are still recognized as the National League Champions in spite of the fact that they were also involved in a cheating scandal. Willie Mays won the Rookie of the Year Award that year. I do not know of anyone that has suggested that that award should be taken from him.

The desire to take the award from Altuve and give it to Judge is not something that happens in baseball. The fact that it hasn't happened, or didn't happen, is not evidence of an anti-Yankees bias.

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2010 - Josh Hamilton Wins Over Robinson Cano

To start, I do not recall this even being a controversy at the time, but as I look back on the voter getters, Cano finished third so I decided this was worth a look.

First, Hamilton led the league in WAR - and he won the award. It seems the voters got it correct. Hamilton led the league in batting average and slugging percentage. Next, Cano was third in WAR, and he finished third in the MVP voting. There is not any injustice here.

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2009 - Joe Mauer Wins Over Mark Teixeira

Yankees fans would say, "Teixeira led the league in home runs and runs batted in." The counter to that is that Mauer led the league in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and (obviously) OPS. Mauer earned 7.8 WAR. Teixeira only 5.3. Mauer was 2nd in WAR among position players (to Ben Zobrist). Teixeira was 13th.

There was also another factor at play here, one that will be discussed in the next article in this series...

Also of note, Derek Jeter and C.C. Sabathia earned MVP votes. The writers voted for three different Yankees for the award. That, in an of itself, proves that there is no sentiment to deny Yankees of the award. Many writers, obviously, voted for Yankees.

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2008 - Dustin Pedroia Over Alex Rodriguez

Now this was an interesting vote. There is the argument that A-Rod had already won the award in two of the previous three seasons and that sometimes there seems to be a tendency for some voters to look to others when voting. (That tendency does not happen only to Yankees, though, so it isn't anti-Yankee.)

In 2008, Pedroia did lead the AL in WAR. Barely. He outdistanced A-Rod 6.9 to 6.8. That's a virtual tie. The Red Sox finished ahead of the Yankees. That might have been a factor. Pedroia also did lead the league in runs, hits, and doubles, and was second, barely, in batting average.

A-Rod not winning wasn't a case of anti-Yankees bias. The facts show this to be the case.

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2007 - Alex Rodriguez Wins the MVP

One cannot make the case that Yankees don't win awards when the Yankees player won the MVP Award. A-Rod led the league in WAR and runs, homers, and runs batted in. He deserved the award and it was awarded to him.

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2006 - Justin Morneau Wins Over Derek Jeter

This MVP case is often Exhibit B in the argument that supposedly proves that the voters are against the Yankees. "Jeter should have won in 2006."

In 2006, the voters were voting in a strange manner, but it wasn't an anti-Yankees bias. Yes, Jeter had a better season than Morneau. Yes, there is the case that the long-time star having a great year should win the award when there is no clear-cut winner sometimes rings true, but what one notices here is that Jeter's high vote total seems to be because many writers were pulling for, and certainly not against, him. Rather than an anti-Yankee vote, there seemed to be a pro-Jeter sentiment in the voting.

Ranked by WAR, Justin Morneau was 19th in the league. Giving him the MVP was crazy. He had just 4.3 WAR. But, and here is where the anti-Yankee bias argument falls apart, Jeter was only 9th in the league in WAR, but was second in vote getting. Jeter's .343/14/97 season was nice. But so was David Ortiz's .287/54/187. And he also didn't win it. The best position player by WAR was Grady Sizemore (6.6). The highest WAR was Johan Santana (7.6).

Making the anti-Yankees claim here as the reason Jeter didn't win just doesn't hold up in light of the evidence.

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2005 - Alex Rodriguez Wins the MVP

Again, the Yankee won the award. He got the votes. A-Rod deserved this award, he led the league in games, runs, home runs, slugging...

There is no claim that there is an anti-Yankees bias that prevents them from getting MVP Awards when they are winning the award.

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2004 - Vlad Guerrero Wins Over Gary Sheffield

This also was a no contest when one looks at the numbers. Vlad Guerrero topped Gary Sheffield in WAR, batting average, home runs, and rbis. He was only 6th though in WAR.

The voters got this wrong, but again it wasn't anti-Yankee. Alex Rodriguez who finished in 14th place among vote getters actually had a higher WAR (7.6) than Guerrero (5.6). If a Yankee should have won this award, it should have been A-Rod, not Sheffield. But the real mistake was not awarding the MVP to Ichiro Suzuki who lead the league in WAR at 9.8 and set the all-time single season record for hits in a season while batting .372.

The fact that Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and Hideki Matsui also earned MVP votes puts to rest any notion that the vote was an anti-Yankee vote. It wasn't.

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2002 - Miguel Tejada Wins Over Alfonso Soriano

Tejada shouldn't have won this award. He was 9th in WAR at 5.7. Soriano, though, was 14th. This award should have gone to Alex Rodriguez who batted .300 with 57 homers and 142 rbis. His WAR was 8.8 tops in the league. (A-Rod was not a Yankee in 2002.)

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CONCLUSION - As was seen, clearly, throughout this examination of the facts, the times a Yankee did not win an award from 2000 through 2025, a quarter of a century, was not the case of anti-Yankees bias by the writers, but because there were other players who were equally or more (often much more) deserving of the award than the Yankee.

The case against the anti-Yankees bias in the awarding of honors and such is proven. The anti-Yankees trope is clearly not true. The claim that there is an anti-Yankees bias is factually inaccurate and it does not hold up to any fair, balanced, and honest scrutiny.

And, yet, I have more evidence in some more articles to come...

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Final Note - Numerous readers here, I am sure, may want to discuss my conclusions. I ask, again, that they take both articles, and my comments therein, into account when seeking to discuss. I ask that they also note that I have more evidence to come in a series of future articles on the larger topic. (Yes, I have even more facts and other reasons to disprove the anti-Yankees bias claim.)

Finally, for those unfamiliar with this site, please know that I will respond to the comments, or at least some of them, but this will take some time. I am back to working full time as a principal and I also teach two college classes on Monday nights. I might not even get to see the comments left here until Tuesday. Please do not take my absence from commenting as any evidence that I do not have responses to the comments. I simply am working within a schedule that does not allow for much, if any "free" time - especially on most Mondays.