Photo via Phila Inquirer
Normally i take pride in being able to predict the 8 major post-season awards MLB gives out. This year I kind of got a time crunch right when the prediction piece had to go out and gave it a quick guess instead of doing deep analysis. how did I do on predictions nonetheless?
Here’s how my predictions went versus actual:
- AL MVP: predicted Ohtani, actual Ohtani unanimously.
- AL Cy Young: predicted Robbie Ray, actual Ray with 29 of 30 1st place votes.
- AL Rookie: predicted Arozarena, actual Arozarena with 22 of 30 1st place votes.
- AL Manager; Predicted La Russa, actual Kevin Cash of Tampa.
- NL MVP: predicted Bryce Harper, actual Harper with 17 of 30 first place votes.
- NL Cy Young: predicted Corbin Burnes, actual Burnes in a very close vote.
- NL rookie: predicted Jonathan India, actual India with 29/30.
- NL Manager: predicted Gabe Kaper SF Giants, actual Kapler.
So, I got 7 of 8 right. Not bad.
Current and former Nats are all over this year’s awards. Harper wins MVP, Ray wins Cy Young. Soto finished 2nd in MVP voting, Scherzer finished 3rd in Cy Young, Lucas Giolito got a 3rd place Cy Young vote, Trea Turner was 5th in NL MVP.
Speaking of Bryce Harper; he wins his 2nd MVP award. Certainly it wasn’t nearly as dominant a season as he had in 2015, but it was still a highly impressive season. He now has 40 career bWAR at the end of his age 28 season and two MVP awards. The list of players who have won 2 or more MVPs (and who are not PED-associated) and are not in the Hall is pretty small: Juan Gonzalez, Dale Murphy, Roger Maris. One more MVP and Harper basically guarantees himself inclusion into the hall.
I mention this because as he stands now he’s already the 45th ranked RF in baseball history by JAWS, and he’s signed for 10 more years in a hitter’s park. The mean career bWAR for all inducted right fielders in the Hall is just 72 bWAR; Harper’s already well past the halfway point and is now basically entering his prime slugging years in his late 20s/early 30s.
There seems to be a lot of antagonism towards Harper; constant droning that he’s overrated or that he didn’t deserve the contract he got. Maybe you can be “over-rated” when you’ve got just one monster MVP quality season .. but two? His career OPS+ is now 142, just a couple points below none other than Albert Pujols. So, at some point the narrative has to change about Harper right?