Unpacking The Early Field of AL MVP Contenders
Six players rise above the rest, and they are all very different.
Welcome to the first installment of my three-part series digging into the 2024 MVP races. Later in the week, I will discuss early National League MVP candidates before ultimately releasing my MVP predictive model, which will discuss what goes into being crowned with baseball’s highest annual honor. Quick disclaimer, I will be focusing primarily on position players, as only 13 true pitchers have won the 155 MVP awards given out since integration (1947)1. I’ll leave the pitcher talk for when/if I do a similar series digging into the Cy Young. Although based on how Shota Imanaga and Ranger Suarez have been pitching this season for the Cubs and Phillies, I may be forced to break this rule in my upcoming NL piece. If you like this series, drop a comment and let me know if you’d like me to continue this type of thing with other awards.
The American League is stocked with talent, but six players appear to be distancing themselves from the rest. These include Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson, Yankees outfielders Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. of the Royals, Astros rightfielder Kyle Tucker, and one of this year’s biggest surprises - Jarren Duran of the Red Sox. These are the only players in the AL (batter or pitcher) with a Wins Above Replacement (WAR) above 2.5 on the year. WAR has increasingly become one of the main (if not THE main) stat in which analysts and fans use to vouch for a player’s MVP candidacy. It arguably reached a new peak of interest in last season’s MVP race between Mookie Betts and Ronald Acuna Jr. The two were neck-and-neck in WAR all year, but Acuna’s monster 41-homer, 73-steal season was plenty to earn him the MVP in unanimous fashion. Betts actually finished with a slightly higher WAR in 2023, 8.3 to 8.2 per Baseball Reference, due to his superior defense. This is not at all to discount WAR’s importance in the MVP conversation. In fact, among the 40-or-so more “mainstream” stats I looked at, WAR is the most correlated stat to the MVP award.2 It’s correlation coefficient of 0.51 means WAR explains roughly 26% of MVP status. So while it is not the be-all-end-all number in the MVP race, it’s definitely significant. And that’s where we will start our AL MVP deep-dive.
Top Contenders
Below you see the top six American League players by WAR, along with other prominent stats. The one stat on the table you may not be familiar with is dWAR. This stands for Defensive Wins Above Replacement and is a measure of defensive ability. Per Baseball Reference, dWAR is “a defensive measure of wins above replacement, but given only the defensive stats of the player and his position adjustment”.3 As a quick reminder, OPS stands for On-base Percentage plus Slugging Percentage (and is just that). OPS+ takes this number and normalizes it across the league to account for external factors (i.e., ballparks) and then adjusts it to a score where 100 is league average (with 150 being 50 percent better than the league average, for example).4
Since MVP is a comparison-based award, in that it is awarded based on how a player does relative to the other players in the league. It is important to not only look at the raw numbers, but also how each player ranks within the league.
It is here where we start to notice some major differences between the contenders. Next, I’ll break down each one.
Kyle Tucker, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto
This group is all about power. That’s no surprise given one of these players broke the single-season AL home run record in 2022 (Aaron Judge), and another (Juan Soto) is one of only 10 players to hit 160 home runs before turning 25.5 Home Runs, RBIs, and OPS define this group, and makes up for what they lack in baserunning and defense. That is important in the MVP race, as Slugging Percentage has a 0.44 correlation with winning MVP (roughly 19% of the variation in MVP status). Of the 58 MVP awards given to position players in the past 30 years, just 8 have hit less than 30 home runs.6 As the saying goes, “chicks dig the long ball”, apparently the voters do too. Batting Average is fairly strong, particularly for Soto, but it is not the defining feature of the bunch. Kyle Tucker has stolen a respectable number of bags, but overall his baserunning is nothing to write home about. Per FanGraph’s BsR stat, which estimates baserunning runs above average, Tucker is merely in a tie for 17th in the league with a BsR of 0.4.7 I don’t think I need to speak too much about their fielding (represented by dWAR), it’s not great.
Bobby Witt Jr.
Witt is simply a classic, old-school ballplayer. He gets on base, hits for average, runs great and plays quality defense. It’s safe to say that few have benefitted from the new rules to encourage movement on the basepaths more than Bobby Witt. He’s bringing back the value of the stolen base, and it is paying dividends. The one big question is whether or not he will be able to hit for power enough to stay in the MVP race. Given his other abilities, he doesn’t need to do much in that department, but unfortunately for him the voters don’t seem to value the stolen base too heavily in the MVP race. Stolen Bases has merely a -0.003 correlation coefficient; basically no relationship at all to winning MVP. Whether or not power hitting is worth the value that fans and writers seem to give it is a debate in and of itself, nonetheless it has unquestionably been a key factor in MVP races for decades.
Gunnar Henderson
He’s the do-it-all guy. The Orioles’ young stud shortstop ranks in the top-10 in all stats shown above except for batting average. Batted ball metrics are in his favor though, as Statcast estimates his Expected Batting Average (xBA) to be 9 points higher at .281. Gunnar also has youth on his side. The reigning AL Rookie of the Year is the youngest of the bunch, and has not had the injury history of guys like Aaron Judge. He’s only 22 years old, and most likely has not yet reached his peak. It all comes down to how quickly he continues his growth as a player, and if he can keep it all up through the season.
Jarren Duran
To be fully honest I am baffled that he found his way on this list, but the numbers are the numbers and he, somehow, has the 4th-best WAR in the AL. I’m still trying to figure out how he had generated so much WAR given his other stats. The only thing he is really exceptional in is defense, and frankly the voters don’t give a [bleep] about defense. dWAR has just a -0.097 correlation with MVP. It’s a miniscule value but tells us, if anything, that a better defensive player is actually LESS likely to win an MVP award, all else equal. Expected stats are not particularly in his favor either. I don’t expect Duran to be in this conversation by the All-Star break.
Can They Keep It Up?
I’ve talked a little about the expected statistics for these players. Statcast has statistics such as xwOBA (Expected Weighted On-Base Average) and xBA (Expected Batting Average) which estimate how a player should be doing in those measures based on batted ball metrics such as Launch Angle, Exit Velocity, etc. It is a good way to contextualize how much a player has been affected by “bad luck” and batted ball variability, and if their production should in theory be better based on the quality of their At Bats. Below is a table of expected stats, along with Hard Hit percentage, to help us predict if these players’ high production will continue. In all of these, a negative number is better, as that indicates they are underperforming expectations.
Surely a lot can change between now and October, as we are barely a third of the way though the season. But as we hit Memorial Day weekend, we have a decent sample of data and I think are allowed to at least begin the conversation. I’ll hold my predictions for a later piece, so be sure to keep reading this mini-series on the MVP races. One thing I will say is that I can’t wait to watch this race play out, it looks like it will be an exciting one!
Shohei Ohtani won AL MVP in 2021 and 2023, but also was a DH and played some outfield.
Based on all players with a season-total WAR 4.9 or greater (the lowest WAR value of any player since 1947). Data was partially balanced to account for the small number of MVP winners (140) compared to non-MVP winners (~1850).
Career Leaders & Records for Defensive WAR | Baseball-Reference.com
On-base Plus Slugging Plus (OPS+) | Glossary | MLB.com
Batting Leaders Up to & Including Age 24 | Baseball-Reference.co
2020 excluded due to the abbreviated 60-game schedule.
Major League Leaderboards - 2024 - Batting | FanGraphs Baseball