On Thursday, Major League Baseball will conclude the 2015 awards season by naming the Most Valuable Players in each league. A look at the top stats on the finalists:
American League
The three finalists in the American League ranked in the top four in Wins Above Replacement this season. Mike Trout and Josh Donaldson finished 1-2, with Lorenzo Cain fourth, 0.1 behind the Rays’ Kevin Kiermaier.
Mike Trout
Trout led the AL in Wins Above Replacement with 9.4. It’s the fourth straight season he has led the AL in WAR. He also led the AL in slugging percentage (.590) and OPS (.991).
Trout would become the first Angels player to win multiple MVP awards. Before last season, the only other Angels MVPs were Don Baylor (1979) and Vladimir Guerrero (2004).
He would also become the third player to win two MVP awards before his 25th birthday, joining Hal Newhouser and Johnny Bench.
If Trout wins or finishes second, it would be his fourth straight finish in the top two of voting. Three players in Major League Baseball have done that since 1931, when the BBWAA began voting on the award: Barry Bonds (two times), Yogi Berra and Stan Musial.
Season highlight: In three games from July 8 to July 10, Trout had two two-homer games. At the end of his stretch, he had a slash line of .309/.401/.618.
Josh Donaldson
If Donaldson wins, he would be the second MVP in Blue Jays history. The other is George Bell, who won in 1987.
Donaldson scored 122 runs and drove in 123, both of which led the AL. He hit 41 home runs, third-most in the league.
Donaldson is the second third baseman in major league history to have 40 home runs, 120 RBIs and 120 runs, joining Alex Rodriguez, who did it twice. Rodriguez was named MVP both times he did it.
Donaldson also produced with his glove; his 11 Defensive Runs Saved this season ranked third among AL third basemen.
Season highlight: Starting when Troy Tulowitzki joined the Blue Jays’ lineup July 28, Donaldson had a .314/.404/.624 slash line to the end of the season. He hit 17 home runs in 229 at-bats in that stretch.
Lorenzo Cain
Cain will be the first Royals player to finish in the top three of MVP voting since George Brett was second in 1985. The only Royals player who has won the MVP was Brett in 1980.
The last player to win AL MVP and the World Series in the same year was the Tigers' Willie Hernandez in 1984. The last hitter to do it was Cal Ripken Jr. in 1983.
Cain is the only AL player who ranked in the top seven in both offensive WAR (seventh at 5.3) and defensive WAR (tied for fourth at 2.3).
Season highlight: Defense is a large component of Cain’s MVP case, and on April 9 he made two dramatic catches on which he ran into the center field wall.
National League
None of the three finalists for NL MVP made it to the postseason. The last MVP whose team did not make the playoffs was Albert Pujols of the 2008 Cardinals.
If Harper wins, he will be the first player in Nationals/Expos history to win MVP.
Harper led the NL in runs, home runs and OPS. He is the sixth player to do that in a season.
At 22 years, 353 days old on the final day of the regular season, Harper would be the fourth-youngest player to win MVP, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He would be the youngest NL MVP since Johnny Bench in 1970.
Harper led position players with 9.9 Wins Above Replacement this season. The only players to post a higher WAR than Harper in an age-22 season or younger were Trout and Ted Williams.
Season highlight: In 12 games from May 6 to May 19, Harper had one of the best two-week stretches in the last 65 seasons. He had a .535/.630/1.349 slash line, hitting 10 home runs in 43 at-bats in this stretch. The Nationals were 10-2 during Harper's surge. In an article that uses Baseball Prospectus’ True Average statistics, Grantland called Harper’s streak of 50 plate appearances during this stretch the best production with the bat in the last 65 years.
Votto, the 2010 NL MVP, would be the third Reds player to win multiple MVP awards, joining Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench.
Votto was one of, if not the best hitter in the second half of the season. He hit .362 with a .535 OBP and 1.152 OPS, all of which ranked first in the majors among qualified hitters.
Since the first All-Star Game was played (in 1933), the only players to post a higher second-half OBP than Votto’s .535 are Barry Bonds and Ted Williams.
Season highlight: On June 9, Votto hit three home runs in an 11-2 win over the Phillies.
Goldschmidt would be the first MVP in Diamondbacks history and is the first player in franchise history with multiple top-five finishes.
Goldschmidt finished in the top four in the majors in batting average (.321), OBP (.435), slugging percentage (.570) and OPS (1.005), setting career highs in each category. Unfortunately for him, he finished behind Harper in each of those categories.
Goldschmidt led first basemen with 18 Defensive Runs Saved this season, eight more than any other player at the position. That total was tied for eighth in the majors at any position this season.
Season highlight: Goldschmidt hit a total of three home runs in two games May 30 and May 31. He tied for fifth in the NL in home runs this season, doing it with only two games with more than one home run. (NL home run co-leaders Nolan Arenado and Harper had four and five multi-home run games, respectively.)
