Last season provided baseball fans with a ton of memorable storylines, moments and individual accomplishments. But one of the more puzzling aspects of 2021 was a lack of alignment between star performances and successful teams. For just the ninth time in history (and the first time since 1987), both leagues’ MVPs — Shohei Ohtani in […]
No sport loves parsing out the “best player” vs. “most valuable” argument in MVP debates more than baseball. Sure, the NBA hasn’t given its MVP to a player on a nonplayoff team since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1976. But the best basketball players exert so much more influence on the game than their baseball counterparts that […]
Most years, the American League’s Most Valuable Player award is basically Mike Trout’s hardware to lose. In his five full MLB seasons, the Los Angeles Angels outfielder never finished lower than second in MVP voting — winning the honor twice — and he led the AL in wins above replacement each of those campaigns. Before […]
As MLB award season arrives, no prize looms larger than Most Valuable Player. From a statistical perspective, the best guide to the MVP award is undoubtedly wins above replacement, and some voters develop their MVP ballots at least in part based on WAR. If you were going just by WAR, the American League MVP should […]
As MLB award season arrives, no prize looms larger than Most Valuable Player. From a statistical perspective, the best guide to the MVP award is undoubtedly wins above replacement, and some voters develop their MVP ballots at least in part based on WAR. If you were going just by WAR, the American League MVP should […]
