Earlier in the week, I looked at the races for the AL and NL Cy Young awards. Today, I’ll be looking at the Al and NL MVP competitions.

AL MVP

Hands down, Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels should win his third consecutive AL MVP. Wait a minute. Oh yea. He didn’t win the last two seasons. Triple Crown fanatics gave it to Miguel Cabrera both years. So, in 2014, with the least impressive numbers of his young three year career, Mike Trout should finally win the award that eluded him in 2012 and 2013.

Trout led the majors with a 7.8 WAR, down from 10.1 in 2012 and 10.5 in 2013. The decrease in wins against replacement is largely due to a bigger player emphasizing power over speed and dropping off considerably on defense. Ironically, the numbers the MVP voters seem to value most – HR and RBI – have gone up, while his batting average, stolen bases, and defensive range have all declined.

That said, his numbers across the board stack up favorably against his AL competition, so this shouldn’t be a close race at all.

Trout was 13^th in the AL in BA at .287 in a year where only 9 AL players hit over .300. He was 7^th in OBP with .377 and 3^rd in slugging at .561.

In counting numbers, Trout came in 3^rd in HR with 36, four behind Nelson Cruz of the Baltimore Orioles, the only player in the majors to hit 40 HR this season. He was 1^st in RBI with 111 and 1^st in runs scored with 115. He even stole 16 bases for good measure, down considerably from 49 in 2012, but still more than most “power” hitters.

In terms of the more advanced measures of hitting, Trout ranked 3^rd in the AL in weighted on base average (wOBA) at .402, behind both Victor Martinez of the Detroit Tigers and Jose Abreu of the Chicago White Sox, each with .411. Weighted On-Base Average combines all the different aspects of hitting into one metric, weighting each of them in proportion to their actual run value.

Also, Trout led the AL in weighted runs created plus (wRC+) with 167, trailing only Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates at 168 for the MLB lead. League average for position players is 100.

While it is disappointing to see Trout’s K% go up to 26.1% from 21.8% in 2012 and 19.0% in 2013, resulting in the loss of roughly 40 points in batting average, the choice to be more of a power hitter has placed him among the league’s elite in HR and RBI and should earn him his first AL MVP.

NL MVP

Among position players, four NLers posted a WAR of 6 or higher – Giancarlo Stanton of the Miami Marlins (6.1), Jonathan Lucroy of the Milwaukee Brewers (6.3), Anthony Rendon of the Washington Nationals (6.6), and Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates (6.8).

Much of Lucroy’s value comes as a top notch defensive catcher. Likewise Rendon is a plus defender at 2B. Unfortunately, the voters have shown little or no interest in rewarding defense when casting a ballot for MVP. Heck, they don’t necessarily value defense when voting for gold glove. So, we can probably narrow the position player argument down to Stanton and McCutchen.

As far as the media narrative goes, Stanton seems to be penalized for getting injured at the end of the season, rather than during the season. As it turns out McCutchen played in only one more game (146) than Stanton (145). Each could have benefited from another ten to fifteen games.

Stanton led the NL in HR with 37. He certainly could have gotten to 40. McCutchen hit 25 in a year that only three NLers hit over 30.

Stanton was second in the NL in RBI at 105, trailing Adrian Gonzales of the Los Angeles Dodgers who had 116. Only three players in the NL hit over 100 RBI. McCutchen hit 83.

Stanton and McCutchen both scored 89 runs to rank 10^th and 11^th respectively

In slash line numbers McCutchen was 3^rd in BA at .314. Stanton was 18^th at .288. McCutchen led the league in OBP with .410, trailed in 2^nd place by Stanton at .395. They flip positions in slugging, with Stanton leading the league with .555 and McCutchen in 2^nd at .542.

McCutchen gets the slight nod in advanced hitting numbers, leading the league in both wOBA (.412) and wRC+ (168) over 2^nd place Stanton in both categories – .403 wOBA and 159 wRC+.

So, in a down year offensively, you’d feel OK giving the MVP to either Stanton or McCutchen. I’d take McCutchen over Stanton, but just slightly.

But, then there’s this guy named Kershaw doing his best Bob Gibson or Sandy Koufax imitation out at Chavez Ravine.

I wrote extensively about Clayton Kershaw’s Cy Young candidacy earlier in the week.  You can read about it here.

But, just looking at WAR, Kershaw put up a 7.2 in just 27 games. He leads the NL in WAR and he did it in just 27 games. Now granted a pitcher has more control over the outcome of a game than an outfielder and will accumulate wins above replacement faster, if he pitches well, but Kershaw’s numbers are ridiculous.

Also, hands down, Clayton Kershaw wins the NL MVP.