The 2020 World Series teams have punched their tickets – congrats to the Dodgers and Rays. We’ve seen some epic performances by EFL players in the playoffs. Corey Seager, Randy Arozarena, Blake Snell, Mookie Betts, Will Smith (the catcher), and Walker Buehler have all contributed greatly to their team’s performances and now their teams are looking to join the already-crowned Champions (the Tornadoes, in case you already forgot) on the socially-distanced awards podium.
We have also come to the final award of the 2020 EFL Awards, the 2020 EFL MVP. Though there were 8 players nominated for this award, only three of them received any votes: Mike Trout (Flint Hill), Juan Soto (Peshastin), and Trea Turner (Old Detroit). As a form of testing how closely you pay attention to particular stat lines, and how perhaps our biases might impact our assessment of statistics, I give to you each player’s stat lines blindly:
Player A: .351/.490/.604 OPS: 1.094 HR: 13 R: 39
Player B: .281/.390/.538 OPS: 0.928 HR: 17 R: 41
Player C: .335/.394/.489 OPS: 0.883 HR: 12 R: 46
Each of these players had very fine season, and each of them excelled in ways the others did not. Player A achieved an OBP essentially .100 points more than the competitors. Player B hit 4 and 5 more HRs than the competitors, and Player C scored more runs (and if I had included SBs he doubled the amount of the nearest competitor).
But only one of them had an OPS over 1.000, as many XBH as singles, and also won another 2020 EFL award. That’s right – Player A is Juan Soto – the 2020 EFL Rookie of the Year and also your 2020 EFL MVP!
Soto had an incredible year at the plate, including more BBs (41) than Ks (28), and only 1 GIDP the entire season. Soto’s year began on the IL due to COVID-19, and thus he only played in 47 of the 60 game season, but he did so much with those 47 games and 154 PAs that he received 6 of 11 first place votes to earn the first ever EFL MVP. And he could do it again next year, since he under contract for another 3 years!
Congrats, Pears!
Runner-up: Mike Trout with 3 votes (Player B)
Third Place: Trea Turner with 2 votes (Player C)
I think I voted for Soto — his numbers were just better than everyone else’s. But thinking only about the 2020 that was, I think I’d rather have Trea Turner at shortstop (7.8 def) stealing bases (12 sb, 4 cs) than Trout in CF (2.2 bases) stealing 1 base (and caught once).
I mean, and MVP makes a difference in the season, right? Turner kept the W’s out of 10th place!
That’s for the 2020 that was, including Turner’s insane 5-game run at the end of August. But if we were going to play 2020 over again — please, no!!! — and Trout and Turner cost the same and both had contracts expiring at the end of the season? I’d probably go with Trout.