There’s no shame in being the 2nd-best player in the AL, and that’s what Mookie Betts was
MVP voters got it right in rewarding the Angels' Mike Trout.
COMMENTARY
They got it right. Shoot.
The Angels’ Mike Trout beat out the Red Sox’ Mookie Betts for the American League Most Valuable Player award Thursday, and it wasn’t especially close.
Trout earned more first-place votes (19-9) and total points (356-311) than the runner-up. Betts appeared in the top 3 on all 30 ballots, while Trout had fifth- and seventh-place votes, probably due to his playing for a non-contender.
They finished 1-2 in the balloting, just as expected. And they finished in the right order, which was something of a surprise.
I thought Betts was going to win. I hoped he would. But I never thought he should.
There might be outrage on this, but it is going to be wholly parochial. It would have been cool for those with a Red Sox rooting interest had the Baseball Writers’ Association of America rewarded Betts, who had a sensational age-23 season (.318/.363/.534, 31 homers, 113 RBIs, 214 hits, 9.6 WAR).
I don’t know if the Red Sox have had a position player in my lifetime that was as productive, well-rounded, and likeable as Betts. Maybe young Nomar Garciaparra, before the injuries took their toll and the clouds came out.
But the truth is it would have been the wrong choice.
Trout was better than Betts, and by more than a little bit. He didn’t match many of Betts’s counting stats, with fewer hits (173), RBIs (110), and homers (29). But his slash-line was superior (.315/.441/.550), he walked 116 times (68 more than Betts), scored more runs in a worse lineup (123), led the league in adjusted OPS (174), played a tougher defensive position, was worth more WAR (10.6, the sixth time in his six seasons he has led the league in that category), and reached base 35 more times while making 89 fewer outs.
I’d prefer not to have had to make Trout’s case. Subjectively, I wanted Betts to win. He’s everything you want to root for in a ballplayer. But so is Trout, and objectively, rooting for Betts was rooting for injustice to prevail in the Red Sox’ favor. As Kate Upton might tell you, that’s (arguably) already happened once this postseason.
I understand the argument that Trout’s team won only 74 games, while Betts thrived for a 93-win division champion. But that can be flipped around, can’t it? How many games do the Angels win without Trout? Sixty-five?
The Red Sox may have missed out on the postseason without Betts. But they still would have been at least a good team without him. Betts had David Ortiz (who finished sixth in the voting), Dustin Pedroia, Hanley Ramirez, and Xander Bogaerts surrounding him in the lineup, and Ortiz, not Betts, may have been the most irreplaceable hitter among all of them. The second-best hitters in the Angels lineup per adjusted OPS were C.J. Cron and Kole Calhoun. Neither you nor I would recognize them in line at Disneyland even if they were wearing their game jerseys.
There is another element of justice at play here. Trout is a stylistic descendant of Mickey Mantle, and yet this is just his second MVP award in his six seasons, in part because his candidacy became a touchstone for the old-school-vs.-sabermetrics debate several years ago. It wouldn’t have been right had he been overlooked again simply because the other 24 guys on the roster can’t keep up or because the WAR-what-is-it-good-for-crowd would prefer to plead ignorance.
Betts isn’t the 2011 version of Jacoby Ellsbury, who was the runner-up to Justin Verlander that year and never has approached that performance or those numbers again. Betts just turned 24 and would have been the first age 23 or younger Red Sox hitter to win the MVP since Fred Lynn in 1975. (Roger Clemens also won it in his age-23 season, in ’86). He’s still getting better, and should be back in the hunt to challenge Trout for years to come.
Hey, Ted Williams didn’t win his first MVP award until he was 27. He was railroaded by the writers a couple of times in his contentious youth. Betts was not ripped off. He was recognized for what he was — the second-best player in the American League.
Now, if you must be annoyed about something MVP-related, how about this retroactive cause instead?
George King — yes, the George King who helped cost Pedro Martinez the MVP in 1999 — had Betts-Ortiz 1-2 on his ballot.
Still doesn’t make up for it, pal.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com