Awards season is upon us this MLB offseason. Just last week, we saw the Washington Nationals be crowned World Series champions, but now it’s time for the individual awards. All finalists for Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year, Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards for both the American and National League have been announced and will be revealed beginning November 11th. Now it’s time for the End of the Bench’s predictions for each award. Here, we are going to look at the MVP award in the American League.
AL MVP:
Mike Trout, LAA
Alex Bregman, HOU
Marcus Semien, OAK
I’ll just start off real quickly by saying it’s unbelievable that DJ Lemahieu is not a finalist. This is a true shocker to me.
Moving on, I know it just seems unfair to even try to break down this award when Mr. Trout is involved. He’s only won the award twice and has finished in the top 5 in just about every season of his young career. We know he’s the best player in baseball and he only continues to show everyone just how great he really is. A slash line of .291/.438/.645 with 45 home runs, OPS of 1.083, wRC+ of 180 and a WAR of 8.3. This was all in just 134 games before being sidelined with a foot injury for the rest of the year. It’s a shame the Angels are just unable to build a winner when they have the best player on the planet at the top of their lineup, but there is no denying Trout is easily the most valuable player to his team. However, he has quite some competition this year with the top 3rd basemen in the American League in Alex Bregman (no disrespect, Matt Chapman). Bregman had a phenomenal year in 2019. He hit to the tune of a .296 average, while mashing 41 home runs and 37 doubles with an OPS of 1.015, wRC+ of 168 and a WAR of 8.4. The more impressive numbers for Bregman are his walks and strikeouts. His 119 walks led the major leagues and managed to only strikeout 83 times. Bregman knows the strikeout and is a true student of the game. Without him, the Astros are still a good team. With him, they are the AL champions. There’s no doubt Bregman is the MVP of the Astros. As far as this last finalist, I will give money to anyone who had him in the conversation this Spring Training. I’m not knocking Semien. If anything, I’m praising him for an outstanding breakout season. Playing in all 162 games, Semien batted .285 with 187 hits, 33 home runs, 43 doubles, DRS of 5 and a WAR of 8.1. He’s begun to emerge as a top SS in the AL and on an Oakland team that continues to be on the cusp of a championship season.
This prediction is really tough. I want to say Bregman is easily your MVP due to the value he brought to the Astros throughout the year, but nowadays it seems the term “MVP” is immediately associated with Mike Trout. I know there’s going to be the argument of team production when it comes to this award. “Angels didn’t make the playoffs but the Astros did so it’s obviously Bregman.” But you have to remember this is an individual award and that the player did everything in his power to help his team succeed. All three of these guys did this, even though Bregman was the only one to make it to the postseason. With Trout, you can’t blame his team’s mediocrity on him. You have to think about who was more valuable to his team. Like I said this is a really tough decision so I’m going to put it like this:
Who I’d like to win: Alex Bregman, HOU
Ultimate winner: Mike Trout, LAA
