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FanPulse: Most feel season ending injuries shouldn’t change Trout and Yelich MVP chances

Plus Jays fans still feel confident about the future.

By Tom Dakers

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If you haven’t taken a moment to join SB Nation FanPulse, now is the time to do it. They survey of fans across MLB. Each week, they send polls to fans from each team MLB team. Blue Jays fans, sign up HERE to join FanPulse.

The National question was asking “Should season-ending injuries impact Mike Trout or Christian Yelich’s MVP chances?”

I don’t know, silly question I guess, of course it will impact their chances, just like anyone else’s injury. If all things were equal, you’d pick the guy that played 155 games over the one that played 130. And those 30 games lost to injury affect their stats. Trout has a 8.3 bWAR, if he finished out the season it would be around 10. He would easily be the MVP then. As it is he and Alex Bregman are virtually tied in bWAR (Bregman is at 8.2). Marcus Semien is close too at 8.0 bWAR. Not that WAR should be the be all and end all for MVP voting, but it is a good way to get a snap shot of the candidates.

On the NL side, Yelich has a 7.2 bWAR, which is behind Cody Bellinger (8.6) and Jacob deGrom (7.9). Yelich does lead the NL in batting average (.329), on-base% (.429) and slugging (.671). Without the injury, for me, it would be a close vote in the NL

In both leagues, it will be an interesting vote. I hate to try to out guess the voters on these things, since they all have their own biases. Like this from Bob Nightingale:

It is an opinion I don’t share. The Astros, without Bregman, would still have won the AL West. I think punishing Trout (or any candidate) for having lessor teammates is a mistake. If you want to do that, change the name of the award to Best Player on a Playoff Team (I guess BPPT doesn’t sound as good as MVP). Do they do that with the Cy Young? Is it only for pitchers on playoff teams? I just think it is a bad idea.

Let’s do our own polls.

Poll

Who would be your choice as AL MVP?

This poll is closed

  • 11%
    Alex Bergman
    (9 votes)
  • 2%
    Gerrit Cole
    (2 votes)
  • 1%
    Rafael Devers
    (1 vote)
  • 1%
    Marcus Semien
    (1 vote)
  • 81%
    Mike Trout
    (65 votes)
  • 0%
    John Verlander
    (0 votes)
  • 2%
    Someone Else?
    (2 votes)
80 votes total Vote Now

And the inferior league:

Poll

Who would be your choice as NL MVP?

This poll is closed

  • 6%
    Ronald Acuña Jr.
    (5 votes)
  • 45%
    Cody Bellinger
    (33 votes)
  • 2%
    Jacob deGrom
    (2 votes)
  • 1%
    Freddie Freeman
    (1 vote)
  • 0%
    Ketel Marte
    (0 votes)
  • 2%
    Anthony Rendon
    (2 votes)
  • 38%
    Christian Yelich
    (28 votes)
  • 1%
    Someone Else?
    (1 vote)
72 votes total Vote Now

The Jays polls:

Manager Approval is at 88%. As it has been all season long, I approve of Charlie, with some misgivings, but he’s likely as good a guy as we could want for the rebuild. He seems endlessly positive with the young players. He’s keeping his emotions in check, not letting the losses get to him (or at least he isn’t showing that they are getting to him). I’m not 100% sure he’s the guy I want at the end of the rebuild, but I do like him at the start of it.

The direction of the team is at 75%, exactly the same as last week. That we are playing better ball at the end of the season helps my mood (as much as the pitching has been just terrible of late, I think a lot of arms are tiring at the end of a long season)

Our graph is fairly straight, some of the teams have had a real roller coaster time of it:

The thing is, the Red Sox can always buy their way out of problems, they don’t look good at the moment but next year might be different.

Phillies fans were very happy at the start of the season, having won the off-season. Since then, not so happy.

I’d almost feel sorry for Cubs fans. They could bounce back next year, but they have had a strange year. Their polling just seems to follow their playoff chances.

Twins fans have been a pretty stable:

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