It's "Most Valuable Player". The most valuable player is the one who get's his team to win. The team that wins is the team with the most runs.Jose Bautista was traded to the Yankees? Since when?
And they were never underdogs...ever. You can't be a 210 million dollar team and be underdogs. They are just another good team in the division.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox descent in to hell continues. This month has been a perfect storm of bad luck, injuries, and bad performance from some of their most reliable guys. While its not necessary their faults, I am starting to wonder, that if they complete the collapse (they are 5-16 this month, holy shit), if Francona, or Theo goes? Not necessarily fired, but moving on to another position, or in Tito's case retirement. The poor guy has seem completely and utterly distraught for the past week. Hopefully they can back into to playoffs and regroup from there. There is not a dominant team this year in the playoffs (cept maybe the Phils), so hopefully they can catch a few breaks.
Grandersons numbers are better overall...Bautista has 1 more homer and has a better avg, slugging and OBP...but Granderson is way out ahead on Runs and RBIs (to me the two most important stats in offensive baseball) and has more doubles, triples, and actually steals bases too!
People also forget CANO!! He leads the majors in extra base hits with 80, is hitting .305, 27 homers, and a career high with 116 RBIs.
RAMA
However, you can't use RBI's and runs as compelling stats in this case, because it's not Bautista's fault the jays lineup around him sucks. Not his fault he can't drive those in on base in front of him, or have them drive him in, if they aren't hitting. As you even said, in the true individual stats, OBP, Avg, and in HRs, he beats Curtis in every category. Put him in the Yankees lineup and see what happens.
As for Cano, good numbers, but he's still behind Bautista, Granderson, Ellsbury, Verlander and Gonzales for consideration, atleast as I see it.