Paul Goldschmidt sixth in NL Most Valuable Player voting

Despite having a first month that had many wondering if we had broken Paul Goldschmidt, our first-baseman recovered amazingly well the rest of the season. He was rewarded with a sixth-place finish in the National League voting for Most Valuable Player. Goldy was named on 25 of the 30 ballots - Jon Heyman, you are dead to me - at positions ranging from third (Bill Brink of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) down to tenth. The two Arizona “representatives” [ a term which means increasingly little in this day and age], of Nick Piecoro and Bob Nightengale, both had Goldschmidt as tenth on their ballots.

As mentioned, it’s his fifth appearance overall, after finishing second in 2013 and 2015, eleventh in 2016 and third last season. He’s the only member of the Diamondbacks to post any kind of top-ten spot since 2011, when Justin Upton came in fourth. With an uncertain winter looming, and next year being the final one for which Goldschmidt is under team control, it’s hard to say who or when the next Arizona player to follow might be. Scary times...

The winner, almost unanimously, was Christian Yelich of the Brewers, who picked up 29 of the 30 available first-place votes. Interestingly, Piecoro was the outlier there, giving his first-place spot to Jacob deGrom, who won the NL Cy Young award yesterday. Yelich finished on 415 points, with the others ahead of Goldschmidt as follows: Javier Baez, Cubs (250 points); Nolan Arenado, Rockies (203); Freddie Freeman, Braves (174); and deGrom, Mets (141).

Below is the full list of winners - no other Diamondback was listed by any of the BBWAA writers this season. The individual ballots can be found here.