I figured I'd combine both first and second place's season into one DYK because there will be a lot of comparison. So, if you look up the voting on baseball reference, you will see the winner was Brewers legend Ryan Braun, who posted only a 2.0 WAR season. In a close second was Rockies legend Troy Tulowitzki, who recorded a monstrous 6.8 WAR. So why did Braun win it over Troy T? Well if we look at their offensive stats we will see they both drove in near 100 runs, but we will also that Braun hit 10 more dingers and had an OPS nearly .200 points higher than Troy. But now you ask, why such a massive difference in WAR despite the much better offense? Defense. Troy T was arguably the best defensive shortstop in 2007 racking up nearly 4 defensive WAR. Braun was a different story. He recorded a mlb leading TWENTY SIX errors at 3B, leading to him racking up nearly -3 defensive WAR. Truly two sides of the same coin, perfectly illustrated by the fact that Braun only won the race by one vote.
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