FanSided MLB 2012 Awards: NL MVP: Buster Posey

For many fans, the end-of-season player awards are one of the biggest highlights of the long MLB offseason. There’s just one problem: the most deserving players don’t always win. Though the BBWAA generally does a better job with the MVP and the Cy Young than with, say, the Hall of Fame, their picks for the coveted hardware are often questionable, if not dumbfounding.

So at FanSided, we decided to put our money where our collective mouth is. At the end of the 2012 MLB season, 52 FanSided writers representing 28 different sites from around the MLB network cast their ballots for Most Valuable Player, Cy Young, Manager of the Year, and Rookie of the Year.

We’ve already unveiled the results of our Rookies of the Year (AL, NL), Managers of the Year (AL, NL), and Cy Youngs (AL, NL). Yesterday we revealed our AL Most Valuable Player, so today we conclude our awards with the National League MVP.

A couple notes on the voting: Balloting opened on October 1 (when each team had three games left to play) and closed on October 5 before the first playoff game stared. Each voter named three players on his or her ballot, with votes scored on a 14-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 basis.

Without further ado, here are the results:

In the single closest race of the FanSided voting, Buster Posey barely edges out Ryan Braun for NL MVP, with Andrew McCutchen finishing a not-so-distant third. Yadier Molina, David Wright, and Chase Headley comprise the second tier, while Matt Holliday, Aramis Ramirez, Jason Heyward, and Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey rounding out the Top 10.

Posey won 541 out of 686 possible points, but he didn’t have a majority support—only 20 of 49 voters had him as their top choice. Braun took home 17 first-place votes and McCutchen grabbed eight, while Molina, Wright, Headley, and Jay Bruce each got one. Posey, Braun, and McCutchen were the only players to appear on all 49 ballots.

What do you think? Did we make the right pick?