Chris Mangan

With a month left in the baseball season, Most Valuable Player discussions are starting to heat up. To me, there are two clear cut favorites.

In the National League, you have perennial contender Albert Pujols. While in the American League, you have a slew of candidates including the two from New York, Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira, Miguel Cabrera from Detroit and a handful of other candidates. The one person most deserving of the MVP is Joe Mauer from the Minnesota Twins.

I am a Twins fan, I admit it, but Mauer is having a historic year playing catcher, one of the most demanding positions in the game.

Mauer leads the American League in batting average, slugging and on-base percentage, as well as hitting a career high in home runs with 26. In fact, the only person in baseball that has a higher slugging percentage and on-base percentage is Pujols. If Pujols is the clear favorite in the NL, why is Mauer not considered the clear favorite in the AL?

People will mention that the Twins are barely a .500 team and will likely miss the playoffs, as of Aug. 30, they are currently 3