Miguel Cabrera

 
The 2010 MLB season has been the year of the pitcher. But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been plenty of elite performances on offense.
 
Home run totals may be down across the board, but there have been plenty of players that have a legitimate argument for MVP.
 
The list is very exclusive—all of these players should receive at least a few MVP votes. Some of these players have carried their respective mediocre team for the majority of the season. Others are leading the way into the postseason.

Dustin Pedroia won the 2008 AL MVP.  Based on that victory, Robinson Cano should run away with the AL MVP this year. 

It's important to compare Cano's year to Pedroia's and expose some truths about baseball, position scarcity, and the real value of players.

Let’s take a look at three players who would be considered hot, as well as three who had their values take a hit:

Three Hot:

Yesterday, Josh Hamilton ran into a wall chasing down a fly ball.  Today, it was confirmed that he would be out indefinitely. So what does that mean for the other MVP hopefuls like Robinson Cano, Miguel Cabrera, and possibly even CC Sabathia?

"I can't say for sure, but all signs point to not soon. It's not good."

That was Josh Hamilton's response to the question of when he will return.

Flash back to 2008. It's late August, and Carlos Quentin of the Chicago White Sox breaks his wrist.

Usually, we would say that injuries are a normal part of the game.

This was unusual though, because Quentin was the leading AL MVP candidate at the time, having already belted 36 home runs and driven in 100 RBI.

In a year of stunning rookie performances, Cuban defector and Reds uber-prospect Aroldis Chapman made his major-league debut on Tuesday, facing three batters in one inning of work. The 22-year-old was electric, hitting 103 mph on the radar gun.

Currently Albert Pujols and Joey Votto are locked in a battle for the coveted "Triple Crown" of hitters in the National League, while Miguel Cabrerra is chasing it in the American League. The hitters Triple Crown, for those that don't know, refers to leading the league in home runs, RBI, and average in the same season. It has been 42 years since anyone has won it at all, (Carl Yastremski for Boston) and it's been 73 years since anyone has done it in the National League (Joe Medwick for the Cardinals).

It's been a tough road for the Detroit Tigers this year. In fact, it's been a tough couple of years for the Detroit Tigers. Losing a seven-game lead in the last month of the season on a walk-off single to the Minnesota Twins was tough to accept.

Most people say that 2010 so far has been the "year of the pitcher." Well, there have been some fabulous hitters this year too.

A lot of these guys from this list could be MVP candidates, and that's why they are on this list, because they're that good.

Making my decisions for these ten players was extremely difficult, but I think I made the right choices.

All the stats used in the article are current as of 8-19-10.

Feel free to voice your opinion.

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As the baseball season nears its end, and the playoff races begin to heat up, everybody is debating about who will make the playoffs and who won't.

Well, I am here to talk about the AL MVP race and who I think will win it.

As of right now, the two main candidates for the AL MVP are obviously Miguel Cabrera and Josh Hamilton. They are both having outstanding season for the teams which are both in playoff races.

Alot of people think it's all about the batting statistics that determines the Most Valuable Player, but that is not true.