While the Kansas City Royals may be undergoing one off their most disappointing seasons in recent memory, Bobby Witt Jr. apparently didn’t get the memo. The Royals’ franchise cornerstone has continued his trend of being one of the leagues most talented players with yet another season worthy of MVP consideration. He’s slashing .283/.353/.456 with a 121 wRC+ at the plate while executing world class defense at shortstop, headlined by a major league leading 18 OAA.
This has all culminated in an AL-leading 4.7 fWAR for Witt, which simply put indicates he’s been the American League’s most valuable player statistically to this point. One would think that this would put him in the driver’s seat for his first AL MVP award, but perhaps history has other plans. According to ESPN’s latest AL MVP betting odds, everyone is trailing Houston Astros DH Yordan Alvarez, who is currently on Triple Crown pace.
The last time someone in either league reached this feat was in 2012 when that year’s AL MVP Miguel Cabrera did it. Before that, it was the great Carl Yastrzemski back in 1967. Alvarez, who after the first game of the unofficial second-half of the season, is leading the AL across the board in batting average (.321), homers (31) and RBI (71).
While his lack of defending is what ultimately keeps him behind Witt in the fWAR race, the precedent has been set by the likes of Shohei Ohtani when it comes to DH’s winning the MVP – if you hit historically well, the voting committee will likely be on your side. And there’s no denying that an Alvarez Triple Crown would be a worthy historic feat.
Potential Witt MVP loss to Yordan Alvarez Triple Crown would be 2024 all over again
Unfortunately for Witt, despite being one of the greatest players of our generation, he’s often been on the outside looking in thanks to Yankees superstar Aaron Judge being that little bit better. Back in 2024, despite posting the greatest season MLB has seen from a shortstop with a 10.5 fWAR, Judge was just that little bit better with a with an 11.3 fWAR, one of the best WAR totals baseball has ever seen.
So, when all of sudden Witt really started to heat up this season and Judge went down with a lengthy rib injury, the stage finally seemed set for Witt to get vindication for his misfortune after two years and claim a deserved MVP.
But now, Alvarez seems to be putting a real damper on his parade. The year Cabrera captured his Triple Crown, 22 voters sided with him in first place giving him a commanding 362 voting points to second-place Mike Trout’s 281, despite Trout’s 10.1 fWAR being nearly three points higher than Cabrera’s 7.3 fWAR.
Historically speaking, there aren’t too many people, apart from perhaps Trout truthers, who have any qualms with the voting committee siding with an ultra-rare feat over statistical dominance in an individual season, which makes Witt’s current situation that much bleaker.
Now, there’s still plenty of baseball left to be played and with just a two homer lead, three RBI lead and seven batting average point lead for Alvarez over second place in the AL, there’s no guaranteeing he’ll be the second player to accomplish the Triple Crown in 59 years. However, with 63 games left, his odds are getting better by the day so long as he remains on top in each category.
There’s no denying Witt is doing marvelous work again for the Royals, but it’s happened before and it could happen again. After one of the greatest fWAR seasons we’ve ever seen in history from Judge in 2024 took Witt’s first real chance at MVP glory, an Alvarez Triple Crown would surely do the same two years later.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source kingsofkauffman.com ’
