NL MVP Award

Today I'm here to talk about the NL MVP, which no matter who he is, the criteria used to decide him will be criticized, we already know the finalists, but the list of worthy candidates go far beyond Votto, Stanton and Goldschmidt. To talk about this award we first have to dwell on the notion, what are we searching for when voting for the MVP is it simply the best individual performance, regardless of the team`s record, is it the best performance among the competitive teams, somewhere in the middle where the player on a last-place team needs to be significantly better than it`s peers, there are several ways to go about it, the term Most Valuable Player, alone creates controversy, for instance, are we really considering the Most Valuable Player on each league, the consensus among any knowleadgeble analyst, fan or executive is that the three most valuable players(assets) in baseeball are Trout, Correa and Seager, that obviously factors in age, track record, contract situation, injury record and several other minor details, all of this is irrelevant to an MVP vote, MVP is all about that year`s performance which contradicts with its name, be that as it may, some of the old timers will say what`s the value of Votto`s performance if his team won 68 games and if you look at the history of this award you`ll see many times the voters defaulting to a player whose team made the playoffs, there was a considerable amount of pushback last yeat when Trout won it, when he was clearly the best player in that season, some of the new guys will say well Votto`s performance is all that matters, the fact that it matters, is this award is wide open.
 According to FanGraphs, here`s the WAR total for the 3 finalists

1. Stanton 6.9
2. Votto 6.6
3  Goldschimidt 5.3

In between that 6.9 and 5.3, you`ll find 9 players, Rendon, Bryant, Blackmon, Scherzer, Pham, Seager, Strasburg, Arenado and Turner,

There`s really no point in digging deep at the 2 pitchers so let`s focus on the hitters.

According to wRC+

1  Votto 165
2  Stanton 156
3  Goldschmidt 142

In between the 165 and 142 you`ll find 6 players Freeman, Turner, Pham, Bryant, Rendon, and Ozuna. Note, Cosart and Blackmon finished at 141

According to RE24 (Run Expectancy)

1  Votto 69.12
2  Goldschmidt 54.46
3  Stanton  53.85

In between, you`ll find only Blackmon at 55.14, for context anything above 45 is considered Excellent. Note, Votto dominated this category with a 13.17 lead over the second highest hitter Mike Trout.

Last but not least when it comes to WPA/LI(Context Neutral Wins, it accounts Wins Probably Added with Leverage Index)

1  Stanton  7.00
2  Votto  6.32
3  Goldschmidt  4.31

In between, you`ll see Bryant, Blackmon, and Turner.

Now after giving you these numbers here`s my take, it`s pretty clear that Votto and Stanton had better seasons at the plate although not by much at the plate, that`s hardly a knock on Goldy, but despite that he might win it by default when you consider how great he has been there could be a little overcompensation by the voters, after two second-place finishes by him, one player who went under the radar is Justin Turner, in the first year of his new deal in just 130 games he had a 5.5 WAR season, with a 151 wRC+ a .322 Avg and a higher walk rate than K Rate 10.9 to 10.3, all that for the mighty Dodgers, had he played the full season he`d easily be my MVP, but he didn`t so it doesn`t really matter, another interesting point, Kris Bryant had roughly the same season offensively this year as he did last year, with improved BB/K % and slightly less power, but his WAR decreased from 8.3 to 6.7 due to declining in defense and baserunning.
  Now I'm going to throw something out there, that`s just well, out there, Anthony Rendon finished the year with a 6.9 WAR, 301/403/533 slash line, 13.9 BB%, 13.6 K%,142 wRC+ a 13.6 UZR(that`s good for third overall in baseball, behind only Betts and Simmons, which basically makes him the best defender among humans in baseball), considering all of this if he was named Bryce Harper he`d win MVP, keep in mind that 6.9 WAR paced the NL, tied with Stanton, I know Baseball Reference has him at 5.9, but the mid point of that is 6.45, which is great, he obviously will not win it, because he is just Anthony Rendon who occupied the 6th spot in the Nats batting order for most of the year and because his team has Harper, Murphy, Strasburg, Scherzer, and others and he is not overwhelming with the bat, I could go on and on, my point is, among all of  the contenders for the award that played in playoff teams that`s Goldy, Arenado, Blackmon, Turner, Bryant and others he had the best overall season, and the two players you can really say outhit him Votto and Stanton, didn`t do it by a whole lot, and on top of that he added premium deffensive value, which really evened the competittion.

So, in the end, I would give it to Rendon he checks every single box, and there`s no one who outperformed him, and as I said before if Bryce Harper had that exact season I have no doubt in my mind he would win the award, just think about that, Harper with those numbers, and if he would be left out of the ballot. Hey I get it Votto was the overall top hitter, with Stanton a relatively close second, but to me, defense counts too.

All WAR numbers I used from FanGraphs, just to clarify

Feel free to comment, give me your opinion and make suggestions.