The W VP Award?

It is that time of year when journalist's start their... X is MVP stories so that we won't be surprised by the eventual voting.

Looking at the last nine years...

Year	Player	Team
1996	Juan Gonzalez	Texas Rangers
1997	Ken Griffey	Seattle Mariners
1998	Juan Gonzalez	Texas Rangers
1999	Ivan Rodriguez	Texas Rangers
2000	Jason Giambi	Oakland Athletics
2001	Ichiro Suzuki	Seattle Mariners
2002	Miguel Tejada	Oakland Athletics
2003	Alex Rodriguez	Texas Rangers
2004	Vlad Guerrero	Anaheim Angels

Anyone see a slight pattern... if Vlad makes it out of bed for the next 20 days he has to be the favorite!

So is this the year that the West's grip is broken - I will post about David Ortiz's chances, while Neil M will post about the Yankee's strongest candidate since... well Gary Sheffield last year.