Donaldson, Harper win MVP Awards

He signed as an overlooked and undrafted high school player after being named the Alabama Gatorade Player of the Year as a senior at Faith Academy in Mobile where he, batted. Hall of Famer Frank Thomas won back-to-back AL MVP awards in 1993 and 1994 with the Chicago White Sox.

The 2015 AL MVP Award victor was announced on Thursday on MLB Network.

Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout finished a distant second in the AL voting with seven first-place votes.

Donaldson, who plays third base for the Toronto Blue Jays, finished with 23 first-place votes. The seven voters who did not chose Donaldson as the MVP had him second on their ballots. Donaldson, aka “The Bringer of Rain”, received 23 first-place votes – 16 more than runner-up Angels outfielder Mike Trout. Kansas City outfielder Lorenzo Cain was third.

“It’s fantastic”, Donaldson said.

Major League Baseball is close to new recommendations for safety netting at its stadiums for the 2016 season. Barry Bonds, Yogi Berra, and Stan Musial are the only other players with four straight top-two MVP finishes at any point in their careers, per ESPN’s Jayson Stark.

Despite the Nationals’ underachievement team this year, Harper’s season was simply so much better than anyone else in the league that it was impossible to ignore. The only two hitters since the advent of the All-Star Game to put up a batting average of at least.362, an on-base percentage of at least. Traded to Toronto from Oakland last winter, Donaldson finished top-3 in the AL in most offensive statistical categories, including home runs (41), RBI (123), runs (122), slugging (.568) and OPS (.939).

Donaldson ended the American League Championship Series for his Toronto Blue Jays by grounding out in Kansas City with the tying run at third in Game 6. He played the entire regular season as a 22-year-old. Donaldson became just the second player from a Canadian team to win the MVP award, joining George Bell, who took home the hardware in 1987. The Nationals right fielder got all 30 votes he’s the seventh National League unanimous MVP and the youngest from either league to win the award since Cal Ripken in 1983.

Harper beat out fellow finalists Paul Goldschmidt of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Joey Votto of the Cincinnati Reds for the award.