"One of the things Justin Verlander loves about baseball, he says, "is the debate part of it."

But what he really loves about baseball is winning. Winning games. Winning debates. And winning awards, too.

He capped a remarkable 2011 season with one more victory Monday, taking home the American League MVP award by a surprisingly wide margin over the next-closest contenders, Boston's Jacoby Ellsbury (38 points) and Toronto's Jose Bautista (49).

The real surprise wasn't the margin, though. It's that he won it at all. Because the debate over baseball's MVP award — at least in the AL this year — seemingly had little to do with the candidates or their resumes, though Verlander's was impressive enough to make him a unanimous Cy Young Award winner."