Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper is the National League‘s Most Valuable Player, and there really shouldn’t be any debate.
But, of course, there is. This is baseball we’re talking about, and a baseball award no less—there will always be disagreement. That’s part of the fun.
Honestly, though, Harper’s MVP case is about as open-and-shut as they come.
Entering play Tuesday, Harper owns a .333/.464/.652 slash line to go along with 37 home runs. He leads MLB with 9.19 WAR, per ESPN.com. His 199 OPS+, a stat that adjusts for park and era, is the best mark since Barry Bonds in 2004, per Baseball-Reference.
By virtually any measure, Harper has been the top player in the Senior Circuit and arguably all of baseball—period.
The only knock against the brash outfielder, if you consider it a knock, is that he plays for a team that almost certainly won’t make the playoffs.
After entering the season as odds-on favorites to run away with the NL East, the Nationals have been a bundle of injury and inconsistency. Disappointing doesn’t begin to describe the state of affairs in the nation’s capital.
Yes, technically the Nats—who sit at 73-70 after an 8-7 win Monday over the Philadelphia Phillies—are mathematically alive.
Baseball Prospectus, however, gives them less than a 1 percent chance of reaching the postseason—and that might be generous.
So Washington is done. Stick a proverbial fork in ’em. That does nothing to diminish what Harper has accomplished at the tender age of 22.
It’s not his fault Washington’s vaunted super-rotation has failed to deliver on the hype or that the bats around him have mostly gone frigid.
If anything, Harper’s output is more staggering when you consider the rest of Washington’s offense has been hobbled by ailments and underperformance.
“You can cry over spilled milk, but having guys injured and out of the lineup, the guys that generally hit in front of him, puts him at a disadvantage in that regard,” manager Matt Williams said, per Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post. “To his credit, he’s stayed the course and done really well, regardless of the situation.”
Yet, fair or not, MVP winners usually hail from playoff-bound squads.
Of the 30 MVPs crowned in both leagues since 2000, only five have come from clubs that didn’t qualify for the postseason. The last time it happened was in 2008, when Albert Pujols won the award in a St. Louis Cardinals uniform.
In laying out the criteria for MVP, the Baseball Writers Association of America leaves things open-ended:
There is no clear-cut definition of what Most Valuable means. It is up to the individual voter to decide who was the Most Valuable Player in each league to his team. The MVP need not come from a division winner or other playoff qualifier.
The rules of the voting remain the same as they were written on the first ballot in 1931:
1. Actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense.
2. Number of games played.
3. General character, disposition, loyalty and effort. …
Frequently, though, voters favor players who put up big numbers on a team that ascends to baseball’s biggest stage.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. If it’s a toss-up between a guy who stuffed the stat sheet for a mediocre club and one whose gaudy figures propelled his franchise to October, use that as a tiebreaker by all means.
But in Harper’s case, there’s no tie to break. He is the unambiguous winner, even with a few weeks left in the regular season.
Are other NL players enjoying superlative campaigns? Of course.
Paul Goldschmidt of the Arizona Diamondbacks (.316/.431/.554 slash line, 28 home runs), Joey Votto of the Cincinnati Reds (.313/.460/.553, 27 home runs) and the San Francisco Giants‘ Buster Posey (.327/.391/.483, 17 home runs) warrant mention.
But if you’re going to disqualify Harper for his team’s shortcomings, those three are out as well.
Among likely NL playoff clubs, Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates (.299/.401/.509, 22 home runs) and the Chicago Cubs‘ Anthony Rizzo (.278/.388/.523, 29 home runs) belong in the conversation.
And Zack Greinke (1.61 ERA, 200.2 innings pitched) could become the second Los Angeles Dodgers hurler in as many years to snag MVP honors, following in the footsteps of Clayton Kershaw, who’s having another dominant year of his own.
Look at all of those numbers again, though, and then look at Harper’s. No one bumps him off the leaderboard.
OK, here’s the part where we have to talk about Yoenis Cespedes. The Cuban slugger has gone on a tear since the New York Mets acquired him at the trade deadline, and the Mets have concurrently left the Nationals sputtering in the dust.
There’s poetry to it, no question.
And there’s media momentum. Fox Sports’ Jon Paul Morosi and MLB.com’s Richard Justice have each recently elucidated Cespedes‘ case. Here’s how Morosi propped up his argument:
When filling out MVP ballots in the past, I’ve considered the context of individual teams and leagues. I tend to think of the MVP as the player whose outstanding performance had the greatest impact on the division races. One could argue that — despite spending only two regular-season months with the Mets — Cespedes is the player most responsible for flipping the NL East race between early August and now.
Cespedes is indeed raking. In 41 games with New York, he’s hit 17 home runs and tallied 42 RBI. And the pitching-rich but formerly punchless Mets have gone 30-11 since he joined the party in Queens.
That’s valuable all right. But most valuable?
Whatever Cespedes does from here to the finish line, he will have played only two months and change in the National League. Yes, his overall numbers between New York and the Detroit Tigers are also excellent, but if you’re going to toss that in, what’s the point of awarding an MVP in each league?
To put it another way: What if a kid got called up from Triple-A in early August and proceeded to catch fire, carrying his club to the playoffs? Would he deserve MVP votes over someone who’d produced for the duration of the MLB slate?
Harper, unquestionably, has been the most consistently valuable player in the NL from the word “go.” Sure, the Nats are barely hanging around .500 with him, but imagine where they’d be without him.
And so we return to the part where this is all subjective and open to debate. Argue if you want, and have fun while you’re at it.
But unless and until the BBWAA alters its MVP criteria and gives specific preference to players on playoff teams, it should be about who had the best season in each league—period.
All statistics current as of Sept. 14 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.
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