Who is nl mvp

Olson has taken his offensive game to another level this year thanks in large part to trimming his strikeout rate to a career-low He is also walking at a solid Throw in his stellar defense at first base, which has already earned him a pair of Gold Glove Awards, and he is worthy of a top-five spot on AL MVP ballots.

In another season where the New York Yankees have dealt with myriad injuries to the starting lineup, Aaron Judge has been a consistent force in the middle of the order. While the Yankees posted a record in August and clawed their way back into the postseason picture, Judge led the way with a 1.

Free agency is looming for the towering slugger after the season, and as long as he continues to stay healthy and productive, he's setting himself up for a massive contract. The year-old leads the American League in batting average.

All while he's still younger than 25 players on the current MLB. Beyond his surface-level numbers, Guerrero's batted-ball data is also extremely impressive. He ranks among the MLB leaders in barrel rate The year-old leads the American League in slugging. It's his contributions on the mound that make him a unicorn in today's game and a slam-dunk pick for AL MVP.

In 20 starts, he's gone with a 2. He is limiting opposing hitters to a. Castellanos and teammate Jesse Winker have both missed time this season, otherwise they might both slot even higher in these MVP rankings. The year-old Castellanos had a.

The year-old has also played a solid center field, and with club control through the season, he's the new face of the franchise in Pittsburgh. The first-place San Francisco Giants do not have a slam-dunk MVP candidate, but there's no ignoring what Posey has done in his return from opting out of the season.

He could wind up splitting votes with teammate Austin Riley among voters who decide to only put one Atlanta Braves player on their ballot, but another top-five balloting finish is possible with a strong September. So what do some of the more modern advanced statistics tell us about their production As comes with the territory of a historically good season in terms of plate discipline, Soto has by far and away the best strikeout and walk rates of the four candidates, especially when these two metrics are becoming more and more important to hitters lately.

While that closes the gap a bit, suggesting Harper has had a bit of good luck and Soto had a bit of bad luck, based on exit velocity and launch angle, Harper has still been better at the plate. So, those who play in more hitter-friendly environments, such as Citizens Bank Park and Nationals Park, get a boost compared to less hitter-friendly parks, like Petco Park and Dodger Stadium.

Once again though, Harper still comes out as the clear-cut most productive hitter of the group. The one downside of this metric is that if a player ends up in more high-leverage spots than another, it can skew the figures through no fault of their own.

In a sense, that plays out in some of the defensive figures above, with a wide range of values for all of the players, despite all of them trying to quantify the same thing, just in different ways. The most basic of which is fielding percentage, looking at how many plays they successfully made as opposed to errors.

The rest of the metrics above all take into account, in some fashion, the probability of a fielder making each play, therefore calculating the level of difficulty of a given play and giving more value to making more difficult plays than routine plays.

As Nationals fans would probably expect, Turner ranks highly among the more advanced fielding metrics. The shortstop appeared to take a step forward in the field this season before the trade to Los Angeles where he shifted to play primarily second base. In short, if MVP voters were to give anyone an edge on defense, it would be Turner.

And while Soto had a solid defensive year, trying to separate the rest is about as clear as mud. The Reds get to play nine games against the Pirates, four against the Nationals and three against the Cubs.

This gives Cincinnati a good chance to hang on for the second wild-card spot, which voters will appreciate, and it gives Votto a lot of mediocre pitchers to embarrass. For most of this season, I was sure that the answer here was Fernando Tatis, Jr. But I've been reconsidering with Bryce Harper's torrid second half. Among players with at least plate appearances since the All-Star break, the slugger leads MLB with a 1. There's still a strong case to be made for Tatis. But with the bit of time that the Padre missed on the IL, his subsequent move to the outfield and the strength of Harper's July and August, I think I have to go with him.

I'd go with Fernando Tatis Jr. Even though he's missed about a month's worth of games, the year-old leads the NL in home runs 36 by six over Max Muncy and Win Probability Added 4.

If either superstar can lead his team to the playoffs while the other misses out, I'd wager that would end up being the difference. The beauty of the MVP award is it encourages debate.

We don't simply rely on one number, or even only numbers, to determine which player provides the most value. This year's NL race, Tom mentioned above, is particularly tight. That said, right now Bryce Harper has most complete case to win the award—anecdotally and statistically.

The Phillies would not be in playoff contention without him, especially with how well he's played over the last two months. Harper, who previously won the award in , has 26 homers, 11 of which have come in the second half. Also, don't sleep on two under-the-radar candidates from the NL Central: Willy Adames and Paul Goldschmidt, neither of whom will win the award, but they still are deserving of some recognition. Adames has been Milwaukee's best and most consistent position player this year, despite playing his first 41 games with the Rays.

He is hitting.