Justin Verlander wins AL MVP!

Justin Verlander was named the AL MVP in voting done by the Baseball Writers Association of America and announced just now.

Verlander won the AL pitching triple crown with a 2.40 ERA, 24 wins and 250 strikeouts in 251 innings on the mound to pick up the Cy Young Award only last week.. And of course, let us not forget he threw the second no-hitter of his career this year as well.

Verlander has now won the Rookie of the Year Award, Cy Young Award and Most Valuable Player Award. He became just the second player in BBWAA history to earn all three awards, joining Don Newcombe. Quite a career already for a guy who was a rookie in 2006. He was the 10th pitcher to win both the MVP and Cy Young Award in the same season and the seventh in the AL.

Verlander picked up 13 of 28 first-place votes and was on 27 ballots total for 280 points. He was ranked top five on 24 of the ballots. The writers tell us Jack Ingraham of Cleveland was the writer who left Verlander off his ballot entirely. CBS Sports' Danny Knobler tells us Sheldon Ocker of Cleveland had Verlander ranked 8th on his ballot, but Miguel Cabrera first.

Jacoby Ellsbury (242), Jose Bautista (231), Curtis Granderson (215) and Miguel Cabrera (193) rounded out the top five.

Cabrera earned two first-place votes and won the AL batting title with a .344 average.

Verlander is the seventh player in the Tigers history to win MVP, the last being "Willie" Hernandez in 1984. He was also the first starting pitcher to win the award in 25 years, since Roger Clemens in 1986. Interestingly, both Clemens and Verlander had a chance to win 25 games in a season, fell a win short, and won the Cy Young and MVP awards in the same year.

Alex Avila finished 12th in voting and Victor Martinez 17th.

Verlander's press conference is set for 3 p.m. I'll do a live post at 2:55 and try to type the quotes from that as they happen.

**Updates throughout**