"All-Star Yankees outfielder Curtis Granderson took a moment the other day to ponder the meaning of value.

It's a tricky concept, of course, one that can be defined in so many ways. It's a word that comes under scrutiny every baseball season, especially as the time nears to decide which players have established themselves as most valuable.

Granderson views the Most Valuable Player as "a mix between who the best player is and obviously who's helping their team out the most," a description that he said ruled him out of consideration.

"There's a lot of other players that are well beyond where I'm at at this point," Granderson said.

The Blue Jays' Jose Bautista is one. At the All-Star break, Bautista has distanced himself from the pack. But with his Blue Jays mired in fourth place, Bautista's march to the MVP award might be interrupted by those who have shined on winning teams. It's a group that includes Red Sox slugger Adrian Gonzalez and Granderson, whose emergence has helped the Yankees pull into the break just a game behind the Red Sox.

"He's just done it all for us," manager Joe Girardi said. "When you look at MVP candidates, I think you have to look at Curtis Granderson."

In one way, the MVP race as it stands at the break shouldn't even trigger a debate.

Bautista leads the league in home runs (31), on-base percentage (.468) and slugging (.702), ranks second in hitting (.334) and sits in a tie for fourth in runs batted in (65). When his numbers are taken together, Bautista's total offensive production outclasses the field by far, an assertion reinforced by advanced metrics.

By one measure, Bautista has outperformed the league average by a stunning 117 percent.

Yet, a familiar question lingers, one that is tied to how one ultimately defines value. How much should a team's performance factor in the MVP race?

The Jays enter the break at 45-47 - nonfactors despite Bautista's brilliance - and would need a monumental push to get involved in the division race. Meanwhile, with Gonzalez and Granderson leading the way, the Red Sox and Yankees have helped position their teams for a second-half battle for the division title."