Yordan Alvarez's MVP case should transcend Astros' postseason fate

Anyone who has followed the American League for the last 15 years should feel like this is the most ridiculous idea going around baseball today.

The concept that Yordan Alvarez, who has been hands down the best hitter in the game this season, should not win MVP if the Astros do not make the playoffs.

It's lunacy. The reason it's lunacy is because of precedence. Voters have already established that MVP doesn't mean most valuable to the team, it means best player in the league. It has happened 10 times, 5 of those in the last 15 years and 8 times in my lifetime. Six times it has happened in the American League, all since 1991.

While in the NL, the Cubs have a stranglehold on MVPs from teams with losing records (Ernie Banks 1958, 72-82, Ernie Banks 1959, 74-80, Andre Dawson 1987 76-85), the Miami Marlins have also earned representation (Giancarlo Stanton 2017, 77-85). In the AL, it represents a host of different players.

In 1991, Cal Ripken Jr was named MVP in a season the Baltimore Orioles went 67-95. Cal finished 6th with a .323 AVG, he was 3rd in HR with 34, he was 4th in RBI with 114. He was 3rd in OPS at .940 as well. He was a great player on a bad team. The HR and RBI were career bests, and he won his first Gold Glove. The Orioles finished 6th in the then-7 team AL East (three divisions did not exist until 1994).

In 2003, Alex Rodriguez was AL MVP on a Texas Rangers team that went 71-91. He led the league in HR and runs scored, as well as SLG & OPS. The Rangers were dead last, 25 games behind division-winning Oakland.

Mike Trout has won MVP on bad teams twice. In 2016, the 74-88 Angels finished 4th in the AL West, 21 GB of division winner Texas. He led the league in runs scored, walks, OBP, and OPS+.

Trout did it again in 2019, when he led the league in OBP, SLG, OPS, and OPS+ on a 72-90 Angels team that finished 35 games behind the AL Champion Houston Astros. Alex Bregman was the best offensive player on the best team in the league, but somehow lost to an also-ran whose season didn't matter in June. Bregman also filled in a SS that season when Carlos Correa was injured an he hit .372 with a 1.236 OPS from August 1st on, playing his absolute best down the stretch. Bregman finished the season a whole win better than Trout in WAR (8.9 to 7.9). Didn't matter, guy on the awful team with no hope of the postseason in June won anyway.

The Angels then cornered the market on bad team MVPs when Shohei Ohtani won MVP in both 2021 (77-85, 18 GB Houston in AL West) and 2023 (73-89, 17 GB of Houston in AL West). Now in '21, Ohtani led the league in triples and caught stealings, but he did go 9-2 as a pitcher with a 3.18 ERA. Being a pitcher as well as a hitter gave him a totally different playing field when it came to being MVP.

In 2023, Ohtani was 10-5 with a 3.14 ERA as well as led the league in HR, OBP, SLG, OPS, OPS+. Once again, the curve he is graded on is different than every other player in baseball.

If it didn't matter than all these players were on bad teams that finished nowhere near the postseason, then Yordan's candidacy shouldn't be predicated on whether Houston makes the postseason when he's been the best hitter in baseball all season and the Astros are in the race for the division on the last week of the season.

If you are wondering how legitimate that concept is, listen to Ken Rosenthal's comments on Yordan's candidacy:

Now, let's get apples to apples here. Yordan leads the AL in batting (.313), he is tied for 2nd in HR with 40, 1 behind the leader, and he is 2nd in RBI with 99. He is first in total bases, first in walks, first in intentional walks, 3rd in hits (3 behind the leader), 4th in doubles, 4th in runs.

Now here is where Yordan's case really takes off. He's first in OBP by a mile. Yordan's OBP is .430, next closest is Willson Contreras is .387. That's 43 points difference. He is first in SLG by a longer mile, as his .597 SLG dwarfs 2nd place Ben Rice's .529. That's 68 points difference. He is first on OPS at 1.027. Willson Contreras is 2nd at .905. That is 122 points difference. That may as well be the Grand Canyon.

I am in no manner trying to besmirch or belittle the accomplishments of Ben Rice or Willson Contreras or the person most often acclaimed as the man who will beat out Yordan for MVP (Junior Caminero), all of whom are having fantastic seasons. None of them are having as impressive a season as Yordan Alvarez, and it's not a particularly difficult conversation to show why.

In the end, there can only be one. It's clear it should be Yordan Alvarez.

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