At this point, the race for the 2021 AL MVP crown is down to two players: Toronto's Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Shohei Ohtani of the Angels. Though, depending on who you ask, the race has been wrapped up in Ohtani's favor for a while now.
Like a lot of other years, voters will have to weigh the impact of a player on a team (Ohtani) that isn't really all that close to contention (hey, just trying to play devil's advocate here). However, because Ohtani is playing both sides, it could also very easily be argued that he's playing a bigger role on his team than anyone who has come before him for about… oh, a century or so.
And he's playing both sides very, very well. Ohtani sports a 2.79 ERA and 120 strikeouts in eighteen starts this season for a 168 ERA+. Those are Cy Young-caliber numbers for sure. But on top of that, Shohei Ohtani is also hitting .272/.367/.648 with 40 home runs, 25 doubles, 88 RBIs, 18 stolen bases, and a 168 wRC+.
Ohtani leads the AL in slugging and OPS and, oh, by the way, he leads all of baseball right now in homers, too.
In terms of the advanced metrics, Ohtani is also putting up stellar numbers in barrel rate, xSLG, wOBA, and hard hit percentage.
The Angels are just barely hanging on to the edge of contention, but if anything, that should make Ohtani's case even more compelling. Mike Trout has been out since May 17 with a strained right calf, and being on worse teams in the past has never affected his own MVP chances, so why should it matter here for Ohtani? Especially when he's putting up numbers that, honestly, have never been seen before by just about anyone still living.
Think of it this way: Where would the Angels even be at this point if Ohtani wasn't on this team?
The only true contender for the AL MVP who could spoil Ohtani's chances is Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who is having a tremendous season in his own right and whose own team is dangerously close to being just a fringe playoff team itself. Guerrero Jr., 22, sports a sparkling .313/.409/.605 line with 35 home runs, 88 RBIs, 20 doubles, 91 runs scored, and a 171 wRC+.
In terms of advanced stats, Guerrero Jr. ranks in the top percentile for a wide variety of metrics: barrel rate, exit velocity, xBA, xSLG, wOBA, hard hit rate, and walk rate. For a lot of those stats, Guerrero Jr. is posting the best marks by far over the course of his young career. With a spray chart that will make you sing to the heavens, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has simply figured it all out in his third season and should be a force in the Blue Jays lineup for years to come.
There are certainly other players worthy of mentioning in the AL MVP race. Players like Marcus Semien, Rafael Devers, and Matt Olson are all having excellent seasons – there's just nothing that compares to what Ohtani is doing. Guerrero Jr. is the closest to separating himself from the rest of the pack and most voters still likely see Ohtani as the clear favorite, though Guerrero Jr. will certainly get some votes.
At the end of the day, this is Shohei Ohtani's award to lose – and that's not going to happen. Which is exactly how it should be, because when you are doing something on the field that hasn't been seen in a hundred years and you could be changing the way we look at the game for years to come, that is the very definition of what it means to be the AL MVP.
And maybe on some magical day down the road, baseball fans will be watching a playoff game with Ohtani starting on the mound and both he and Trout anchoring the Angels lineup. Maybe Shohei Ohtani will go seven innings and hit the game-winning home run, continuing to take the baseball world by storm and inspiring a new generation of players who realize that they too might actually be able to both pitch and hit as they get older.
But I'm getting ahead of myself here; Angels fans will just take actually making the playoffs first.
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