The Steve Czaban Show

The Steve Czaban Show

The Steve Czaban Show will feature the latest national and local sports headlines as well a variety of topics and news that matter most to the...Full Bio

 

The Numbers Say Bellinger Should Not Win The MVP

Everyone said that when Christian Yelich went down on September 10th with a season ending kneecap injury, his MVP chances went down with him. As a student of Drew Olson's school of realism for sports fans, I believed everyone that said that Yelich couldn't win the MVP if missing the last 18 games of the year. Now that the season is over, I'm questioning everything everyone said. Baseball has always been about statistics as long as I can remember. It made sense that Yelich was out of the running because the rest of the National League had the opportunity to pass Yelich in all categories. Fast forward to the end of the season, and that is not the case. Yelich is the only person in the NL who finished the season as a leader in multiple categories.

Christian Yelich suffers a season ending injury on September 10th

Yelich finished the season as the leader in batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage (which he led all MLB). However the experts and the oddsmakers have Cody Bellinger of the Dodgers still as the favorite. I started looking at the stat lines for the categories that Bellinger led and thus the questioning began.

Did he hit the most home runs?

No, that was Pete Alonso with 53. Also, Bellinger only hit 3 more than Yelich.

Did he have the most RBI's?

Nope that was Anthony Rendon from the Nationals. In fact 6 people hit more than Bellinger.

Okay, maybe it wasn't at the plate but on the base pads. Did he lead in stolen bases?

Nope, The leader in stolen bases was Ronald Acuna Jr. from the Braves. Yelich finished 3rd and then way down on the list in 17th was Bellinger.

The only category that Bellinger led in was WAR posting 9.0, Yelich was second with 7.1.

I understand that the Dodgers are a hell of a team, but in a league that is constantly graded by statistics, I just don't see how Bellinger is the MVP. If he was second in a bunch of categories that might be different, but he is all over the board.

After listing all of the information you just read, I'm still sure Bellinger will win the MVP and I'll still be here shaking my head.


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