Beltre, Hamilton Finish Top 5 in MVP

It's been a long time since there has been such an intriguing debate in an MVP race in baseball.

Miguel Cabrera and his Triple Crown vs. Mike Trout and his historic rookie season, all-around talent and sabremetrics dominance: Cabrera 1, Trout 0.

We could go on and on about who's the rightful winner of the award that was announced on Thursday, but the race was for third place was won by Adrian Beltre, while Josh Hamilton finished fifth in the voting, giving the Texas Rangers some pretty good representation.

The third-place finish is the highest finish for Beltre since 2004 when he finished second in the NL voting while playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Hamilton, of course, won the AL MVP in 2010, but the fifth-place finish is the second-best of his career after it seemed like he'd be a run-away winner after the first month of the season and his historic start. We all know what happened after that.

Beltre, who was also named Rangers Player of the Year this week, hit .321 with 36 home runs and 102 RBIs and won a gold glove at third base for the second straight season, while Hamilton hit .285 with 43 homers and 128 RBIs.

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