this teeth It's such an obvious and easy bet that even gambler Ippei Mizuhara would probably win, with his old friend Shohei Ohtani very likely to win the National League MVP award.
And the Mets' do-it-all, do-it-all, two-way superstar Francisco Lindor is very likely to finish second in this race for the two-star spot. (I add those three superlatives to counter the unfair advantage, yes, bias, that Ohtani isn't a Mets player. More on that later.)
Ohtani is probably going to win it because he's on his way to becoming a 50-50 guy. He's already the first 45-45 guy. Of course, Ohtani has done something no one else has done before, and if he wins as a full-time DH, he'll be the first to do so. Of course, that would be great. Historic even. But is it worth more?
All things considered, it's pretty close — or at least, it should be.
Lindor has hit home runs, stolen bases, played great defense, provided rare leadership and brought positivity to a Mets team that went from 11 under to 24 games back and into playoff contention. Chants of “MVP!” rang out Sunday at a thriving Citi Field. (Like the voters, they are biased.)
The two outlets that calculate WAR are split numerically down to the decimal point on who is better. Baseball Reference has Ohtani at 7.1 WAR as of Sunday. Fangraphs has Lindor at 7.3. And since the lead is exactly 0.7 in both cases, the tie can't be broken.
This should be a fifty-fifty chance.
Almost certainly not.
Ohtani has a good chance of winning because, during the year he had to take a break from pitching, he transformed into a rare all-around DH, adding crucial stolen bases to his tremendous power game. Ohtani has a good chance of winning because he's a headline-grabbing (but media-hating) international superstar, and his $700 million contract is twice as cheap as Lindor's $341 million contract.
And frankly, the East Coast bias is a figment of someone's jealous imagination, so Ohtani is more likely to win. Yes, total fake news.
The East Coast bias is so weak that it's actually reversed. Yes, there may just be a West Coast bias. Look at the history.
Since the Mets were founded, six players from the Los Angeles Dodgers have won the MVP award, seven from the Los Angeles of Anaheim/California Angels, seven from the Oakland Athletics and 10 from the San Francisco Giants. If you include the Padres (one) and Mariners (two), 33 players have come from the West Coast.
Amazingly, and almost absurdly, none of the 63 National League MVPs since the Mets began have been Mets players. (There was a tie in 1979 when both Pittsburgh's Willie Stargell and St. Louis' Keith Hernandez won the award, even though the legendary Mets player Hernandez wasn't a Mets player!)
He's mostly remembered for giving up one strikeout in 2006, when Carlos Beltran had a WAR of 8.2. He finished fourth, while Ryan Howard won the MVP with a WAR of 5.2.
A year later, David Wright posted 8.3 WAR, but the Mets are remembered for blowing a seven-game lead with 17 games to play, and the MVP award went to Jimmy Rollins, who predicted a Phillies championship (and the Mets' decline) but still posted 6.1 WAR.
It's not that the Mets are under-rated; in some cases, they're ignored entirely. Bernard Gilkey had 8.1 WAR in 1996, while MVP Ken Caminiti had 7.6, but finished 14th. John Olerud had 7.6 WAR in 1998, but finished 12th. Beltran had 7.0 in 2008, which was good for 21st.
Tom Seaver led the league in WAR in 1971 (10.2), 1973 (10.6) and 1975 (7.8) but finished 9th, 8th and 9th in MVP awards. Willie McCovey won in 1969, which was a no-brainer, but Seaver is the true symbol of that miracle season. He finished second in WAR, the best Mets' history.
“We've always been the ugly step-sister here, so you really have to do something special to be accepted here,” Brandon Nimmo said of his unfortunate voting history. (Nimmo, in passing, told Lindor, “I would vote,” but unlike the actual voters, he acknowledged his own bias.)
Lindor doesn't care about any of this. He only found out recently that the Mets have never won (never heard of an East Coast bias. Good for him!). He just keeps helping the Mets win games. He is the primary reason the 2024 Mets have gone from transitional to thrilling. Thanks to him, the Mets have played and won meaningful games in September, although their nine-game winning streak came to an end with a 3-1 loss to the Reds on Sunday.
Lindor's team record for consecutive on-base appearances in a season was also broken at 35, but he made history: He became just the third shortstop to hit 30 home runs five times, joining multiple-time MVPs Ernie Banks and Alex Rodriguez.
If Lindor steals four more bases, he will become the first shortstop in history to post 30-30 records in consecutive seasons (coincidentally, Bobby Witt Jr., the second-place candidate for the AL MVP, is two away).
As for the MVP, Lindor said, “I'll leave that up to you guys.”
Unfortunately, that's the problem: it's up to us.
