Both David Wright and Robinson Cano are have outstanding seasons for the local teams. Is it far fetched to think both could be in the running for their respective league MVP’s?

Going into yesterday’s action Cano was leading the American League in batting, while Wright leads in RBI. According to Baseball Reference only Justin Morneau has a higher Wins Above Replacement (5.0) than Wright and Cano.

The MVP is not about raw data alone, as I discussed last year during the Mark Teixeira/Joe Mauer controversy, but the intangible value of a player to their team. Cano has been the Yankees most consistent hitter in a season that has seen Jeter, A-Rod, and Teixeira struggle with the bat. If not for his season I can’t imagine how the middle of the Yankees order would look. Defensively he is one of the top 2b in the league (UZR/150 of 10.1) which is far and away the highest of his career. Anyone who watches the Yankees can see the improvements of Cano defensively, especially the maturity as the “lapses in attention” are a thing of the past.

Wright has been an interesting case. He started out terribly and was on pace to strike out over 200 times. His swing was loopy and it appeared Citi Field was going to swallow his career before the age of 28. A funny thing happened when the calendar turned to June: Wright found his level stroke again, hit over .400, and drove in 29 runs. The Mets don’t have a vaunted offense like the Yankees and Wright has been asked to carry a club that is missing Carlos Beltran and seeing some of the poorest power production of Jason Bay‘s career.

What if both players were to pull off the MVP? The last time two New York players won the award was 1956 when Don Newcombe won it for the Dodgers and Mickey Mantle for the Yankees. That capped a three year stretch where all the MVP’s were from the New York area as Willie Mays, Roy Campanella, and Yogi Berra won the award. In total New York has swept the MVP award six times since its inception in 1911.

Unfortunately the writers tend to have an anti New York bias when it comes to the award (see Darryl Strawberry in 1988 and Derek Jeter 2006) so the chances of us seeing the feat a seventh time appears unlikely. Justin Morneau, Adrian Gonzalez, and Miguel Cabrera all have good cases as well. Of course, it’s early so the conversation could be completely different by the All Star Break. Even so, I somehow think we won’t have the same hysteria debating Wright/Cano for MVP as we did for Mark Teixeira and Joe Mauer just a year ago.

Mike Silva is a freelance writer and radio host since March of 2007. This website is his own personal "digest" of New York Baseball He's also hosts NYBD Radio on Blog Talk Radio and 1240 AM WGBB. Check out his sports media commentary at www.sportsmediawatchdog.com. Check out his official website, www.mikesilvamedia.com

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Tags: Adrian Gonzalez, David Wright, Derek Jeter, Don Newcombe, Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Mickey Mantle, Miguel Cabrera Detroit Tigers, Minnesota Twins, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Robinson Cano, Roy Campanella, San Diego Padres, Willie Mays, Yogi Berra