The numbers made the strongest case, obviously.
The voting for the National League Most Valuable Player award, announced Thursday afternoon, went about the way most people expected, and it was pretty much a runaway. Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman, the pride of El Modena High in Orange, received 28 of the 30 first-place votes and won easily, denying Mookie Betts the opportunity to be the only player besides Frank Robinson to win the MVP in both leagues.
And while we hate to keep going back to 1988 – the current Dodgers, I’m sure, are hoping they won’t have to keep watching replays of that Kirk Gibson home run for a good while – the aftermath of that season and the aftermath of this one are instructive in their contrast.
That year the Dodgers swept the MVP (Gibson) and the Cy Young (Orel Hershiser) awards, even though the Mets were the dominant team in the regular season. In retrospect, the Cy was a no-brainer after Hershiser broke Don Drysdale’s record for consecutive scoreless innings. But Gibson won the MVP with ordinary regular season stats (.290 batting average, 25 home runs, 76 RBIs, .860 OPS, 31 stolen bases), and he beat out the statistically superior Darryl Strawberry (NL-best 39 homers, 101 RBIs, NL-best .911 OPS, 29 stolen bases) largely because of his leadership.
We have this argument periodically about the “valuable” part of the Most Valuable Player evaluation. Is it strictly numbers? Do intangibles matter? Does it have anything to do with a five-tool player getting the most out of his skills and displaying a template with which others can do the same?
It is hard to argue against Freeman, the best player on a Braves team that won 35 games and the NL East. (That they reached the seventh game of the NLCS isn’t a factor in this discussion, just like the Dodgers’ winning it all isn’t a factor, because it’s a regular-season award and ballots were to be submitted before the postseason began.)
Freeman’s numbers over the 60-game regular season were magnificent: 1.102 OPS, .341 average, 13 home runs, 53 RBIs, 51 runs scored, 73 hits, 45 walks, .640 slugging percentage, .885 slugging percentage with runners in scoring position … you get the idea.
But in Los Angeles – and I assume also Boston, where New Englanders were keeping track while cursing Red Sox management regularly – we saw Betts’ value on a daily basis.
Some of it translated into numbers, though not enough for all but two of the 30 BBWAA voters. He finished with a .928 OPS, .292 batting average, 16 home runs, 39 RBIs, 47 runs scored, 10 walks, plus a Gold Glove and the Silver Slugger award. He was first in the majors in Baseball Reference’s version of Wins Above Replacement at 3.4, though the Fangraphs formula had him at 3.0, tied for fourth in the majors; Freeman and Cleveland’s Jose Ramirez were tied at 3.4.
(Bottom line: WAR is useful, but it’s also a flawed measurement as long as we can’t agree on one way to calculate it.)
Specifically, Betts provided the type of consistent top-of-the-order presence the Dodgers hadn’t had since … well, you might have to go back to Davey Lopes from 1974-81. Betts provided power, speed and patience. And while it took a couple of weeks for Manager Dave Roberts to put Betts in the top spot every day and leave him there, the Dodgers took off when he did.
As a leadoff hitter, Betts hit .302 with a .952 OPS, but more significantly the Dodgers were 33-9 when he led off. And his .439 batting average (18 for 41) with runners in scoring position was best in the majors, to go with a 1.294 OPS in those situations.
But Betts’ impact might have been best measured in moments, both the times he made the spectacular play and the consistency with which he made the right play.
We remember the spectacular throw from deep right field to cut down Arizona’s Ketel Marte, trying to stretch a double into a triple, in the second week of the season. Or the three-homer game against San Diego in August. Or the September evening when he scored from second on an errant pickoff throw in Colorado, which brought with it memories of the night Gibson scored from second on a wild pitch to end a game against Montreal (and, in fact, people were posting the clip of that Gibson dash on social media before the game had ended).
Mookie Betts just reminded me of this play –
MON@LAD: Gibson races home from second on wild pitch https://t.co/t9Hsklcg13 via @YouTube
— Craig Minami (@craigtminami) September 20, 2020
Consider, also: In Baseball Information Solutions’ metric of defensive runs saved above average, Betts finished the regular season with 11. No other National League right fielder had more than two.
He provided plenty of highlights, yet the one that somehow sticks in my head is the happy dance after he robbed Marcell Ozuna at the wall during Game 6 of the NLCS. It showed, I hope, that you can play with precision but also with joy and passion.
“He strives to be perfect, strives to be excellent every single time out there,” Clayton Kershaw said of Betts the night the Dodgers won the World Series. “And that focus and that consistency, I don’t know how much better it made other guys in this clubhouse, but I know it did. I know it did some.
“You don’t win a World Series without any of those 28 guys in there. You know, you just don’t. But obviously, he made a huge impact on our team, a huge impact on our postseason.”
That’s valuable.
@Jim_Alexander on Twitter
