Mookie Betts
Bonus time! You knew that I’d find some way to work Mookie Betts into this, didn’t you? Of course he’s not on the Red Sox any more, but he still fits into this discussion. Last year he was number two on the rankings, behind Mike Trout, thanks to his incredible MVP season in 2018. While he had a slightly down year in 2019, Mookie was still one of the best players in the league and comes in at number five for 2020, although now as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
2018: .346 BA, 32 HR, 80 RBI, 129 R, .438 OBP, 1.078 OPS (136 games)
2019: .295 BA, 29 HR, 80 RBI, 135 R, .391 OBP, .915 OPS (150 games)
While Mookie saw a bit of a dip across his numbers apart from runs scored, he still put up another excellent season’s worth of statistics last year.
It’s no use discussing the fact that he’s no longer on the Red Sox any more as that angle has been beaten to death, but it is worth noting that in losing their best player, the Red Sox also lost one of the top players in the league. Instead of having a top-five player, their best (Devers) ranks just barely in the top 30.
The interesting thing now will be in seeing if Devers and Bogaerts (or perhaps even someone else on the Red Sox) can elevate their games in 2020 to shoot up the list for 2021.