MVP Discussion

Brek Shea was the supposed front-runner earlier in the year, but his goal scoring rate faded a bit towards the end of the year, at the same time that FC Dallas faded from the Supporters’ Shield race.

I’m casting my biased vote for DeRo, but I’m sure many of the big media members will follow the logic of “When in doubt, vote for Donovan”

DeRo is second, and Shea third on my ballot.

Houston finished second in the East with nobody scoring more than five goals. But Davis led the league in assists. If it were a golden ball, there’s no doubt that DeRo gets it, but if I’m paying attention to “valuable” and the notion that an MVP has to play on a successful (i.e. postseason) team, then Brad Davis gets my vote this season. (The reason DeRo is second is admittedly some amount of homerism, but dude put up numbers in half a season that were better than nearly everybody’s full season league-wide. It’s almost enough to overcome the success-bias in MVP voting.)

If you think Houston isn’t good enough to have a viable MVP candidate, though, then you’re probably limiting yourself to just the top 3 teams in the west, in which case you can go with Mauro Rosales, Landon Donovan, David Beckham, Fredy Montero, Kyle Beckerman, Ozzie Alonso, or Alfonso Saborio – or even somebody else on those teams, which are all stacked with valuable contributors.