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We’re starting our Mid-Season Awards Series today at Dugout Central. I sat down with several staff members last week (Ok, actually I sent them an e-mail) to discuss the best and worst performances of the first half and the results can be found here all this week. We lead it off with our selections for Mid-Season Most Valuable Players.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Josh Hamilton managed to take a plurality of the votes to win the award, and it’s hard to argue with his 2008 performance. He’s slipped to 12th in batting average in recent days, but he still leads the league by a large margin in RBI and is second in HR. His advanced statistics aren’t quite as dominating (5th in VORP and tied for 2nd in Win Shares) but what draws the eye to Hamilton is “the story”. As Bill Chuck says, “It’s great to see that Hamilton has overcome his demons and is achieving his potential.” I don’t know that overcoming drug addiction and several years out of the game is really part of the MVP criteria, but I can’t deny the fact that it makes Hamilton’s achievements seem even larger and will be enticing to MVP voters at year’s end. Barring a complete collapse in the second half, Hamilton would have to be considered the favorite for the award.

A few other names popped up in the discussion. John Quemere voted for B.J. Upton of the Rays based not only on his performance, but the affect that moving him to the outfield has had on the team’s defense overall. He’s well down the list in VORP but is tied for fifth in Win Shares, so he certainly deserves some support. Shaun Payne went for Ian Kinsler, who isn’t getting nearly enough love from the media. He’s hitting .332/.391/.545 with 14 HR and 79 runs scored. He leads the league in both VORP and Win Shares. Josh Hamilton may be the better story, but Kinsler has been a slightly better player this year. Doug Bird went a little off the beaten path and chose Joe Mauer. He gives him credit for his return to the upper reaches of the batting average list and his adept handling of a young Twins pitching staff.

As for me, I’ll take J.D. Drew. He’s hitting a healthy .299/.409/.564 with 16 HR and 51 RBI. He’s seventh in VORP so it’s tough to make the argument that he’s the best player in the league, but I tend to favor a player who is on a playoff team, unless somebody is just blowing the league away. The top players in the AL are fairly tightly bunched, so it doesn’t take much of a slump or surge to shake things up a bit, and Drew is in the bunch. The thing that made the biggest impression on me is that he played his best baseball just as the Red Sox lost David Ortiz. This might just be a happy accident, but it’s tough to argue that it isn’t a big reason the Sox are still a playoff team. It’s a close call, and there are a ton of players who could take the award with a big second half, but for the first half I’m going with Drew.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

Lance Berkman is my choice and he edges out Chipper Jones as the staff selection by a vote here. Jones has garnered a bit more attention due to his flirtation with the .400 mark, but his lead in batting average gets obliterated by the rest of Berkman’s game.

• Lance .349/.436/.667; Chipper .388/.485/.640
• Lance 60.4 VORP; Chipper 56.6 VORP
• Lance 21 Win Shares; Chipper 14

The last is a product of the fact that Jones simply isn’t a very good defensive player. That weakness probably won’t affect the actual vote come October, but it tips the scale even more strongly in Berkman’s direction. All the staff members who voted for him relied on Berkman’s big statistical year as the basis for their argument.

The two other players who garnered votes were Chase Utley and Mark Teixeira. Utley has certainly cooled off after his torrid start, but he remains one of the top players in the league. It’s no secret that I think he got ripped off in last year’s MVP vote and Bill Chuck likes not only the statistical evidence but also the intangibles he brings to what is, at the moment, a playoff team. It will be interesting to see if Utley can bring his second half numbers up just a bit and give himself a chance to claim the award he should’ve won last year. Doug Bird once again looked beyond the usual candidates to tab Teixeira. In so doing he gives “Tex” credit for making pitchers pitch to Chipper Jones as well as his own achievements. I’ll admit that I would have to see a whole lot more data before I was willing to start crediting one player’s accomplishments to another, but I suppose if you want to make that argument I’m not going to stand in your way.

So your winners are Josh Hamilton and Lance Berkman. Tomorrow we’ll look at the Mid-Season Cy Young winners.