Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira vs. Adrian Gonzalez and Jacoby Ellsbury

The Yankees and Red Sox are locked in an eternal battle for AL East supremacy.

Because of that, each team's players will always be judged against one another, not the rest of the league.

As of right now, each team has two MVP candidates.

Yankees: Mark Teixeira and Curtis Granderson

Red Sox: Adrian Gonzalez and Jacoby Ellsbury

Fittingly, these duos play the same positions for their respective teams. So which is better?

The Yankees 3-4 combo in the lineup definitely wins in the home run department and also holds a slight lead in RBI. In most other aspects the Sox stars are holding their own quite well. Let's compare the stats:

	Gonzalez/Ellsbury	Teixeira/Granderson
HR	38	65
RBI	168	181
AVG	.333	.262
OBP	.391	.353
Runs	165	178
Ks	155	206
Steals	32	25
CS	11	11
Errors	3	5

Those stats are nice any way you look at them. The power numbers for the Sox sluggers aren't as high as would be expected—Ellsbury has actually hit two more homers than Gonzalez—but the RBI are comparable. 

Considering Ellsbury is hitting out of the leadoff spot, the fact that the RBI totals are that close is actually quite surprising. 

The unpopular statement I am going to make is a simple one: the Sox are more consistent. 

Looking at these numbers from every angle, there are none that stand out as bad for Gonzalez and Ellsbury. Two stand out in that sense for the Yankees duo, and those are average and strikeouts.

Home runs can only take a team that is hitting a combined .266 so far, and the star players are the ones that are supposed to bring that number up, not bog it down. No one should truly be considered for an MVP award if they cannot manage to hit over .280 on the year and strike out less than 125 times, regardless of the position in the batting order.

Only three times in history has a player batting under .280 won the AL award. The three were Harmon Killebrew, Roger Maris and Lou Gehrig. Not exactly a common feat. Maris even had to break Babe Ruth's single-season home run record to do so.  

Looking at the obvious numbers, it would almost seem like a no-brainer to go Teixeira/Granderson. Unfortunately for those two, a deeper look at the stats reveals major holes. 

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