As always I love reading your analysis Lindsay. I’ve only been following current/stat deep baseball since maybe late 2023 (when I started listening to baseball podcasts). Back when I watched the Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz trinity in the 90s and our mate Larry, I never paid attention to stats.
Since following baseball media (social and regular) the impression I got is that if we just went by stats then anyone not named Ohtani or Soto has an uphill battle to climb to win an MVP. How does a regular one way player or non “generational hitter” challenge for an MVP if these other players rack up WAR so effortlessly? Is it merely the voters just getting bored of voting for the same guy every year?
Hey Dan! It's going to be tough for Riley to break through the Ohtani/Acuña double-threat type of recent MVPs unless, to your point, voter fatigue severely hits the usual suspects. That's why I put the Harper and Bryant comparisons in and pegged him as a Top 3 finisher versus actually winning. To actually take the title, he'd need all of those two-way guys to have a less than impressive year AND none of the media darling big names (like Soto, Harper, etc) to equal his performance.
As always I love reading your analysis Lindsay. I’ve only been following current/stat deep baseball since maybe late 2023 (when I started listening to baseball podcasts). Back when I watched the Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz trinity in the 90s and our mate Larry, I never paid attention to stats.
Since following baseball media (social and regular) the impression I got is that if we just went by stats then anyone not named Ohtani or Soto has an uphill battle to climb to win an MVP. How does a regular one way player or non “generational hitter” challenge for an MVP if these other players rack up WAR so effortlessly? Is it merely the voters just getting bored of voting for the same guy every year?
Hey Dan! It's going to be tough for Riley to break through the Ohtani/Acuña double-threat type of recent MVPs unless, to your point, voter fatigue severely hits the usual suspects. That's why I put the Harper and Bryant comparisons in and pegged him as a Top 3 finisher versus actually winning. To actually take the title, he'd need all of those two-way guys to have a less than impressive year AND none of the media darling big names (like Soto, Harper, etc) to equal his performance.