Your 2012 Giants: Posey Wins MVP, EPIC!

Buster Posey wins the NL MVP award in a landslide (Chron, Merc, CSN).  He had already won the Comeback Player of the Year award, as well as the Silver Slugger award, the prestigious Hank Aaron Award (for offensive excellence), and the Willie Mac Award.  And he won the 2010 Rookie of the Year award already, plus has two World Series rings.  His mantle is getting full.  Pretty good for a player with only one full season under his belt.

He received 27 of the 32 first place votes for a total of 422 points.  Braun was second with 285 points and 3 first place votes.  McCuthchen, who was the favorite at the All-Star break, had 245 points but no first place votes.  And Yadier Molina, who was considered a serious contender to Posey for this award, had 241 points and 2 first place votes (remaining two votes).

CSN has a nice listing of stats on this.  Posey is the 14th time a Giants player won the award (first awarded in 1931, so if one per year - not sure if there were skips - that 72 total awards, Giants won almost 20% of them) and 10th SF Giants MVP. He is one of eight Giants players to win it, joining Barry Bonds, Jeff Kent, Kevin Mitchel, Willie McCovey, Willie Mays, Carl Hubbell, and Larry Doyle.  He is the first catcher to win it since Johnny Bench in 1972 and no Giants catcher has ever won it.  He is the first Giants prospect to win the MVP award for the Giants since Willie Mac joined the team in 1959.

The Giants also won the trifecta, with a Giant winning the All-Star, World Series, and seasonal MVPs (Melky, Pablo, and Buster).  As noted previously, he won the batting title becoming the first NL catcher to win a batting crown since Ernie Lombardi in 1942.

Good quote by Pavlovic, capturing Posey and why he won the MVP:

“Ultimately it’s just a bad decision, and that’s all I’m really going to say about that,” a defiant Buster Posey said hours after Melky Cabrera’s suspension. “We have to approach the rest of the year with a chip on our shoulders.”

Remember, when Melky was suspended, we were tied with the Dodgers for the NL West lead, and was behind by one game at the end of that day.  The Giants ended up winning by eight full games over the D-gers, who added A-Gon and Beckett in a huge trade soon afterward, a move that most thought would turbo boost them to the title, but instead, it was the Giants turbo boosting to their second NL West title in three seasons and second World Championship.

Alex also added that Posey joined Bench and Munson as the only catchers in MLB history to win the Rookie of the Year Award and World Series title, along with the MVP Award.  Another Epic moment to this most Epic of seasons.