San Diego Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis is one of the best and most exciting players in Major League Baseball history. Tatis is known for making incredible plays at shortstop while also having the cleanest bat flips in the MLB. He does all this while playing at an extremely high level and is arguably a top-three player in baseball. Tatis did not disappoint this year as he was nominated for the National League MVP award. He will be going up against Philadelphia Phillies Bryce Harper and Washington Nationals Juan Soto.
This award might be tough for Tatis to win as Bryce Harper and Juan Soto both had monster seasons. Tatis also did have an incredible season too, which included him slashing .282/.364/.975. He was also able to belt 42 home runs and drive in 97 runs.
It's going to be an extremely tight race but there is a chance that Tatis walks away with an MVP award. Let's take a look at a few reasons why he should and could win this award.
Two Reason Why Tatis Is The MVP
2. Led the league in offensive WAR
WAR is a great stat to determine the success of a player's season. It is one of the most used stats in the MLB, and it's one that the voters are definitely going to take a look at. Luckily for Tatis, he had the highest offensive WAR which was 7.3 on the season. In seasonal WAR, he also finished in the top 10 with a 6.6 WAR. He was also able to do this in only 130 games played. When Tatis was out there on the field fully healthy, he was showing that he was arguably the best player in baseball.
1. Putting up the type of numbers he did despite being injured
Fernando Tatis played through some injuries this season but was still able to be one of the best players in baseball. He did everything he could to try to get his team into the playoffs. Unfortunately, they came up short behind the World Champion Atlanta Braves in the wild-card. Tatis himself feels like he deserves the MVP because of what he did while battling injuries.
“It's as simple as that also you add a little bit of what we talked about Dash coming back from injuries, just performing no matter what. I feel like I had a pretty good year, individually.”
Despite being injured he still ranked top 10 in the National League in home runs, slugging, OPS and WAR.
Tatis only playing 130 games could be a negative. Unfortunately for him, he battled some injuries. His team also not making the playoffs could potentially hurt but luckily for Tatis, the other two candidates' teams did not make it either. Although Bryce Harper was close to making the playoffs, the Philadelphia Phillies did not. It will be interesting to see if the voters decide to vote for Tatis. He's definitely deserving of the award. If he had made the playoffs this would probably be an easier pick and Tatis would walk away with the award. With him being out a decent amount of games and not making the playoffs, the voters might decide to pick somebody else for the MVP award.
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