Astros' Yordan Alvarez has compelling MVP case but surging Tigers could flip debate

The AL MVP was locked up for Yordan Alvarez. Until it wasn’t. He’s still a heavy favorite with a crazy slash line of .322/.435/.623 with 35 home runs and 87 RBI through Tuesday’s action. His 197 wRC+ means he’s producing essentially double league average. If the season ended today, he’s walking away with that award. 

But if you go by fWAR, and there’s reason to believe many voters do, he’s been joined by an unlikely name. Tigers’ catcher Dillon Dingler has nearly matched Alvarez’s 5.6 fWAR with 5.5 of his own. One is a generational designated hitter putting together a challenge for the Triple Crown. The other is a 24-year-old catcher nobody outside of Detroit even mentioned back in March. But the gap is closing, and a lot of it is because of the context behind Dingler’s season. 

Dillon Dingler and a surging Tigers team are complicating Yordan Alvarez's MVP case

This is more than a hot stretch to get Dingler in the discussion. He’s currently fourth in baseball in fWAR, behind only Shohei Ohtani, Pete Crow-Armstrong, and Alvarez. That’s wild. Catchers generally aren’t able to rack up value like this, and they certainly aren’t often rising in leaderboards as seasons progress. The physical toll of catching generally caps some value because of wear and tear and simply playing fewer games. But that isn’t impacting Dingler to this point. He has a legitimate case as one of the best two-way players in baseball. 

But there’s more to the story. What’s happening around Dingler is only helping his case. The Tigers traded their ace, Tarik Skubal, to the Dodgers. They traded their number two, Casey Mize, to the Padres. That’s usually a signal that a team is done and ready to look to next year, but the Tigers have gone the other way. 

An ugly 10-9 loss to the Orioles on July 29 cemented their position as sellers, but they’ve gone 8-2 since then. Heading into play Wednesday, the Tigers were just 2.5 games out of first place and 0.5 games back of the final Wild Card spot. Going back to the day before the ugly loss to Baltimore, they’ve outscored their opponents 95-31 in the last 12. If that keeps up, Detroit selling their top two starters becomes a strange and memorable storyline, and a big boost to Dingler’s candidacy.

Alvarez has his own questions that come with sitting as a DH and a team that is currently in a playoff position, but not firmly. It’s not even the first time that an unlikely candidate from the Tigers has threatened his place at the top. Aaron Judge’s injury has helped clear a path for Alvarez, but various Tigers and his health have looked like worthy foes for him in his quest to win his first MVP at different times.

But he’s healthy, and instead of a banged-up former MVP and a shortstop in Bobby Witt Jr., having a down year for him, he’s faced with a catcher who is putting together a season for a team nobody expected to be relevant at this point. Voters have often rewarded players who carry a contender to a postseason. If the Tigers keep up their pace, Dingler might very well get rewarded. 

This isn’t to say Alvarez isn’t going to win. He probably still should. His offensive numbers are so absurd, and his floor is higher than basically anyone else. The full-season sample he’s providing should be more noteworthy than a hot stretch for a few weeks. But the gap is close enough that it would be foolish to dismiss the push for Dingler. He’s not a compiler riding volume or padding stats on a bad team. 

He’s outproducing his position by a wide margin, both offensively and defensively. And he’s playing meaningful baseball in August, and likely will be in September. That combination is what moves MVP ballots at the end of the year. So Alvarez does remain the favorite, but he’s not about to lap the field anymore, and Astros fans who are in tune with this race as much as the playoff race need to be paying close attention to Detroit.

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