Poll: Your choice for the American League’s best first-half pitcher

Narrowing this field down to five nominees was much more difficult than I had originally thought. I could easily remove a couple, add two others, and still think of another two deserving to be here.

There are a trio in which I do feel strong in having here. I’ll not mention those three as I do not want to sway your voting. I will say that for stretches, if not for their entire of the first halves of this season, all five have shown dominance over opposing hitters.

Again, my nominees were taken by looking at statistics, not be if a player’s team was in a contending position. Here’s who I believe should be considered as the American League’s top pitcher for the first half of the 2014 season.

I’ll also repeat something for the AL MVP post. Many of these posts pop up on the interwebs at this time of year. Most tell you their choices for this award and that award (The awards are, of course, not real.). I want our readers to have that choice. We voted for our All-Star teams for the AL and NL. Time for the readers to have a little fun.

(Players are listed in alphabetical order.)