Breaking down one voter's NL Most Valuable Player ballot

The night before the final day of the regular season, I went to bed with Dodgers lefty Clayton Kershaw on top of my National League Most Valuable Player ballot. My feeling was that he had historic dominance and the Dodgers would not have won the National League West without him.

That's true.

Then, the next morning, I thought the same could be said for Pittsburgh's Andrew McCutchen, given he was an everyday player as opposed to a pitcher who made 27 starts and missed the first month of the season with an injury. McCutchen played in 146 games.

So I flipped them around on my ballot and emailed it to the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

McCutchen's 25 home runs, .410 on-base percentage and overall leadership were too much to ignore on a team that didn't give him a lot of offensive support.

I had a strong feeling for Miami's Giancarlo Stanton, who went out with a broken jaw on Sept. 11, making it difficult to be late-season contenders for a wild card spot. He had tremendous power, but I didn't want to give the top spot on the ballot to a player that was injured in the final two weeks. But here's the question: Was he worthy of the No. 1 spot given the Marlins' fade after his injury?

So after McCutchen, Kershaw and Stanton, I voted the Nationals' Anthony Rendon fourth and the Dodgers' Adrian Gonzalez fifth.

Rendon appeared on a lot of ballots of because of his run scored, which is a sign that he's getting on base a lot. He scored 111 runs and played excellent defense at second and third.

Did I think about voting him higher on the ballot? I did, but the Nationals had such a balanced offense, it was hard to think to believe they wouldn't have won the division without him.

Gonzalez was fifth because he was the top RBI guy (116) on a team that won the division.

I went with San Francisco's Hunter Pence sixth followed by Washington's Jayson Werth, Milwaukee's Carlos Gomez, Colorado's Justin Morneau and Chicago's Anthony Rizzo.

Pence was the Giants' best clutch hitter and he gets points for the intangibles of being their team leader. That's also the reason Werth and his .394 on-base percentage was on my ballot.

Gomez's combination of power, speed and defense for Milwaukee allowed him to crack the list and then I used the final two spots for Morneau and Rizzo, who hit 32 home runs.

Generally, I use the top five spots for players that are on contending teams. The second five on the ballot are for players that just had sensational seasons.