It’s the end of the MLB regular season, and time to argue over who should win the major awards.
Please post a 10-player ballot, basing MVP on the criteria of your choice. Rank your choices from #1 (the most valuable player) to number 10 (the 10th most valuable player) with NO TIES for either or both leagues. You have a couple of weeks to do this but please do not base any part of your decision on postseason/wild card game performance.
1 Nolan Arenado
2 Giancarlo Stanton
3 Joey Votto
4 Charlie Blackmon
5 Paul Goldschmidt
6 Anthony Rendon
7 Kris Bryant
8 Max Scherzer
9 Corey Seager
10 Stephen Strasburg
AL
1 Jose Altuve
2 Aaron Judge
3 Mike Trout
4 Corey Kluber
5 Jose Ramirez
6 Francisco Lindor
7 Chris Sale
8 Gary Sanchez
9 Mookie Betts
10 George Springer
I’m a Dodger Fan but how the hell is Seager getting all of this MVP love? I’m not sure he’s even the most valuable position player on the team let alone in the league.
Though Seager doesn’t have the counting stats to make him stand out (85 runs, 77 RBI), but he did finish 7th in WAR among NL hitters with 5.7, which is higher than Arenado (5.6) and Goldschmidt (5.3). Seager cracks my list as the sabermetric lover’s choice.
Also, I based on choices on a mixture of my own criteria but also how I think the actual results will play out.
I do think Tommy Pham should be getting more love, but he kind of flew under the radar most of the season. He had a .306/.411/.520 slash with 23 home runs, 25 stolen bases, and 5.9 WAR (6th in the NL among hitters).
Sure he does. Even though Carrasco had an excellent year, Kluber was dominant. If you’re not a fan of WAR (8.0 to 5.4) or ERA+ (202 to 139), Kluber also had 5 complete games and 3 shutouts. Carrasco had 1 and 0.
I get WAR but Justin Turner has a virtually identical WAR and at least felt like he had the better season to me. I think the only reason Turner isn’t doing better is he missed more games than Seager.
I’m not sure how he doesn’t. They both won 18 games, and the similarities end there. Kluber pitched 3 more innings despite making 3 fewer starts; he allowed fewer hits, walked fewer men, hit fewer batters, threw fewer wild pitches, and struck out more men. His ERA was a run lower. He was a vastly better pitcher. Carrasco’s 18-6 record is largely a reflection of his fine pitching but it’s also, to a very great extent, a reflection of the fact that he got the fourth best run support of any pitcher in the major leagues. Kluber went 18-4 because he dominated. Kluber got a full run less of run support than did Carrasco.
It’s not that Carrasco didn’t have a fine year, he did. But Kluber was the best pitcher in the league.
ETA: I’m bumping Stroman off my ballot for Brian Dozier, as I forgot to include the “made the playoffs” bump to my analysis of Twins players. It’s a close call there, but whaddya gonna do.