"When Felix Hernandez won the Cy Young on Thursday, writers and pundits across the Internet, including me, hailed the award not only as a victory for Hernandez, but also the proliferation of advanced statistical measures in baseball's mainstream. Today's National League MVP vote, which Joey Votto deservedly won, served as an example that one 13-game winner's Cy Young trophy doesn't mean sabremetrics have been fully embraced.

We know this thanks to the case of Ryan Zimmerman, the Nationals' best player. Simply, he deserved better. If there had truly been a sea change, Zimmerman would have fared better and finished more closely to where he should have. Zimmerman finished 16th and appeared on eight of 32 ballots. The notion that playing on a winning team proves a player's value prevailed, a way of thinking that runs counter to the wisdom provided by advanced metrics.

Zimmerman's finish in the MVP voting upset the emerging narrative about new stats taking hold among the BBWAA's award voters. Zimmerman, according to FanGraphs.com, ranked third in the NL in WAR and fourth in UZR. According to Baseball-Reference.com, Zimmerman ranked seventh in OPS+, seventh in WAR and fifth in Win Probability Added.

Zimmerman was, at least, one of the 10 best players in the National League this year. There really isn't any way to argue otherwise. Use standard measures - Zimmerman finished eighth in batting average, seventh in on-base percentage and 10th in slugging.

While Zimmerman may have been damaged by his 25 home runs (20th) and his 85 RBIs (tied for 23rd), his finish probably didn't have much to do with voters choosing which numbers they preferred. It probably had more to do with voters operating on a flawed, out-dated way of considering value."