We’ve reached the unofficial midpoint of the MLB season – the All-Star Break. And with the All-Star Break each year comes a tradition unlike any other – predicting MLB’s awards winners after just three months of action. Much can change over the season’s final three months, but it’s still fun to look at which players are in pole position for awards, both good and bad.
AL MVP: Mike Trout, Angels
Just like last year, and in 2012, and in 2013, Mike Trout isn’t going to win the AL MVP award this season because his Angels are terrible. This is something I predicted back in April before the season started – Trout’s awesome again, but the Angels stink and there are enough good players for contenders in the American League to push Trout down the voting.
Sure enough, that’s happening. Trout is hitting .322/.425/.567 with 18 homers and 15 stolen bases. He’s leading the American League in fWAR at 5.5, just a hair ahead of reigning AL MVP Josh Donaldson. Him, Mookie Betts, and Ian Desmond (Ian Desmond!) are the only American League players with at least 15 homers and 15 steals. His .415 wOBA is third in the AL behind David Ortiz and Donaldson, and his 167 wRC+ is tied with Donaldson, behind only Ortiz. Once again, he’s one of the best players in baseball.
However, his Angels are a tire fire, 37-52 and a whopping 16.5 games out in the AL West. This shouldn’t matter when determining the MVP, but it does. And with players like Donaldson, Ortiz, Desmond, Jose Altuve, and Manny Machado all having fantastic seasons and playing for teams in the playoff hunt, they’re going to get the benefit of the doubt over Trout, just like Donaldson and Miguel Cabrera have in the past – even though Trout is once again doing things that no 24-year old should be doing on the diamond.
AL LVP: Mark Teixeira, Yankees
There are plenty of possible options here, including Teixeira’s Yankees teammate Alex Rodriguez. So why pick on the 36-year old Teixeira in the final year of his eight-year, $180 million contract? Well, aside from the fact that he’s having a truly terrible season at the plate (.193/.272/.317 with seven homers in 61 games), the Yankees haven’t been able to find an adequate replacement for Teixeira in the lineup when he’s not playing.
This is a situation that the Yankees didn’t take into consideration before the season. After all, even though Teixeira was in his mid-30s and played just 111 games, he hit .255/.357/.548 with 31 homers, which is quite a strong year. This year, he’s broken down, and the Yankees have used a total of seven first basemen already, including Teixeira. New York’s .201/.273/.332 line from their first basemen is far and away the worst in baseball, and only the Red Sox, A’s, and Dodgers have gotten fewer than the Yankees’ ten homers from the position.
That lack of production isn’t all on Teixeira (obviously), but when you take all of the aforementioned factors along with New York’s 44-44 record into account, it’s easy for me to point the finger at Teixeira as the American League’s least valuable player.
NL MVP: Kris Bryant, Cubs
Here’s what an anonymous blogger (who may or may not share both a first and a last name with the author of this piece) said about the NL MVP race just two weeks ago.
Since I, I mean, that anonymous blogger, wrote that column, a favorite has emerged in the NL MVP race – Kris Bryant. The white hot Bryant leads all National League position players in fWAR at 5.0 – nearly a full win better than Brandon Crawford at 4.2 fWAR and more than a full win better than each of Corey Seager (3.9) and Daniel Murphy (3.7). His 25 homers leads the NL, while his .403 wOBA ranks fifth (behind teammate Anthony Rizzo, Matt Carpenter, Murphy, and Jake Lamb) and his 153 wRC+ ranks sixth-best in the league (following Rizzo, Carpenter, Murphy, Yoenis Cespedes, and Brandon Belt).
Bryant also ranks highly in a pair of more traditional counting stats, leading the NL with 73 runs scored and placing third in RBI with 65 (behind Nolan Arenado and Murphy). He’s also been a Swiss army knife of sorts for Joe Maddon and the NL Central leading Cubs, logging multiple innings at four positions across the diamond and filling in for an inning at two more just for giggles. He’s also graded out as an average or better defender at all of those positions.
The race here is still wide open, but today, Bryant gets the nod.
NL LVP: Erick Aybar, Braves
There are plenty of possible options here, including the still-highly paid Ryan Howard and Aybar’s teammate in Atlanta, A.J. Pierzynski. But why is Aybar getting the nod? His .212/.265/.267 line has led to an NL-worst (among all players with at least 200 plate appearances) .230 wOBA and 37 wRC+. He’s stolen just two bases after notching at least 14 in every season since 2009, and has already been caught four times. His defense at shortstop ranks as below average by both DRS and UZR. The only NL shortstop to rank worse than Aybar in both categories is Alexei Ramirez of the Padres (who we also could have handed this award).
Furthermore, there’s the fact that the Braves reportedly had interest in Aybar after acquiring him from the Angels in the Andrelton Simmons trade, and they decided to hang on to him and fill their shortstop hole with him for a season. The Brewers acquired Jonathan Villar from the Astros for AA pitcher Cy Sneed a week after the Braves and Angels completed the Simmons trade, and Villar is enjoying far and away the best season of his young career.
Aybar is just a placeholder in Atlanta until top prospect Dansby Swanson is ready (perhaps in the second half), but instead of being a placeholder that the Braves could possibly flip in the coming weeks, he’s a placeholder that Atlanta may just have to shove to the side and realize as a sunk cost.
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