Red Sox Mookie Betts, Angels Mike Trout on track for greatest MVP race

Two 2018 AL MVP contenders are reaching heights rarely seen in history. How do Betts and Trout stack up against other great pairs to top the league?

Sean Penney wrote last week about the MVP race between Mookie Betts and Mike Trout. In his piece, he correctly pointed out that the pace these players are on would result in historically great seasons. Today we will dig a little deeper and compare it to the greatest MVP races in MLB history.

First, let’s establish some background. Most years, May 31 is way too early to talk about MVP races. About one-third of the season has played out and all kinds of crazy things might happen in the next four months. But Betts and Trout have not had any type of ordinary seasons. Their numbers are far from garden-variety even compared to those of MVPs from yesteryear.

Through the seasons first two months Trout and Betts stack up as follows.

Those WAR totals could pass as full All-Star seasons, but again it’s May. If Betts played at this clip for the rest of the season his bWAR total would be the highest posted for a position player since Carl Yastrzemski won the triple crown in 1967. If Trout played at this clip for the rest of season his bWAR total would be the highest for a position player ever.

Let that sink in. Both of these players are having seasons that have little comparison in the annals of baseball history. It’s far from a given that these two players can perform like this for the entirety of the 2018 season, but just as a fun exercise let’s see what it would look like if they did. If Betts and Trout maintain their current pace where would 2018’s AL MVP race rank among the greatest in the game’s history? Let’s establish some guidelines to help answer that question.

Full disclaimer: the following criteria will be completely arbitrary. This is not meant to be a perfect measuring stick, but just an article that sheds some light on how great these two players have been thus far.

The Red Sox and the Angels have both played 55 games so we will scale both players’ counting numbers by a factor of 162/55 (or about 2.95). First, we want to make sure this is a race, so we will start with the criteria that both of the top two MVP finalists amassed 8.0 bWAR; this eliminates years of one super dominant player carrying the weight. For simplicity, we will not consider years where a pitcher finished in the top two in MVP voting. Finally, for each year that makes the cut, we will average the rate stats (weighted by plate-appearances) and add the counting stats of the top two MVP finalists.

The stats considered will be bWAR, fWAR, Home Runs, Stolen Bases, wRC+, Def, Batting Average, On-Base Percentage, and Slugging Percentage.

Rank in a category is relative only to the 14 MVP races that met the criteria above for consideration. Because this is completely arbitrary anyway we will borrow the point system from the greatest game of all time: Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

First in a category: 10 points

Second in a category: 8 points

Third in a category: 6 points

Fourth in a category: 4 points

Fifth in a category: 3 points

Sixth in a category: 2 points

Seventh in a category: 1 point

And because WAR is an all-encompassing stat, bWAR and fWAR will count double. Sound like a flawless, definitive, and not at all convoluted system to rank MVP races, right? Well too late, I already wrote this whole article.

Presenting the five best MVP races in baseball history according to my new made up metric.

1941 AL MVP Race

MVP Winner: Joe Dimaggio

MVP Runner-Up: Ted Williams

Total Score: 34

1941 featured one of the most fascinating and memorable MVP races in baseball history. Joe Dimaggio had his record-shattering 56-game hitting streak and Ted Williams became the last player to ever bat .400 in a single season.

Looking back, it seems readily pretty apparent that Williams had the better season; Dimaggio had Williams on defense, but Williams posted an OPS 200 points higher than Dimaggio’s 1.083 mark and was 40% better compared to league average at the plate than Dimaggio was. But the Yankees won the World Series behind their young center fielder and Williams wasn’t especially loved by baseball writers, which constitute the MVP award voters, so Dimaggio took home the hardware.

1957 AL MVP Race

MVP Winner: Mickey Mantle

MVP Runner-Up: Ted Williams

Total Score: 51

Ted Williams was no stranger to finishing as the runner-up in MVP races: this would be the fourth time he finished in this position on the ballot. All three other times, 1941, 1942, and 1947, one could make a very compelling case that the Splendid Splinter was snubbed. He led the league in bWAR all of those years, including a WAR gap of nearly four in 1947 over Joe Dimaggio.

But this time there were no sportswriters to blame; the Mick had Williams beat fair and square. Despite a shocking return to form for 38-year-old Williams, there was little doubt in who claimed the mantle as the game’s best player (pun definitely intended).

Mantle was almost as good at the plate and was superior in the field and at the plate. In 1957, the Yankees won the pennant once again and another great Yankees center fielder beat the kid out for an MVP award.

2004 NL MVP Race

MVP Winner: Barry Bonds

MVP Runner-Up: Adrian Beltre

Total Score: 55

When Barry Bonds won his first MVP award in 1990, Adrian Beltre was eight-years-old. Beltre grew up watching Bonds win awards and, despite almost being young enough to be Bonds’ son, in 2004 25-year-old Beltre gave the 39-year-old Bonds a run for his money.

Bonds was so feared in 2004 that he was walked intentionally 120 times. Let that sink in. The highest number of intentional walks ever received in a year by a player not named Barry was 45. Last season,120 walks, intentional or not, would’ve ranked third in the league.

On the other hand, Beltre somehow managed to belt 48 homers while playing in Dodger Stadium for half his games and defending third better than anyone in the game. It would be the last MVP award for Bonds and he would find himself out of baseball three years later (though not necessarily because of his performance).

On the other side of the coin, it would be the first great season for Beltre in a career that now rivals the greatest third basemen to ever play the game.

2001 NL MVP Race

MVP Winner: Barry Bonds

MVP Runner-Up: Sammy Sosa

Total Score: 67

This might be the most eye-popping MVP race by raw numbers in the history of baseball. Two, two, players hit 137 home runs. That is the most ever by two players in a single season.

Bonds, of course, broke the home run record this season and Sosa became the only player ever with three 60 home run seasons.

At the time, Bonds was clearly on his way to an inner circle Hall of Fame career anyways. But in 2001, Bonds started his second act which, PEDs or not, resulted in possibly the most impressive career numbers of any player in the modern history of baseball. These are numbers we will almost certainly never see again in our lifetimes and it’s still absolutely mind-boggling to look back on. The steroid era may have been regrettable as a whole, but boy did it leave behind some fun results.