Morning Rundown: Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani win MVP, Non-tender deadline today
MVP award announced on Thursday, teams have by 6 pm ET to tender contracts to players
Major League Baseball announced the MVP winners for the American and National League on Thursday.
After hitting .322/.458/.701 with 58 home runs and 144 RBI, Aaron Judge won his second MVP. It was also his second season where he put up a bWAR of at least 10, the other the year he hit 62 home runs.
Judge, 32, received all 30 of the first place votes, with Bobby Witt Jr. getting all the second place. Juan Soto, Gunnar Henderson, and Jose Ramirez rounded out the top five in voting.
The historic season for Shohei Ohtani, his first in Los Angeles with the Dodgers, ended with winning the MVP unanimously. He became the first player to put up a 50 home run, 50 stolen base season. Francisco Lindor and Ketel Marte rounded out the top three in the NL.
The deadline to tender contracts to players is today at 8 pm ET. While the attention generally goes to the arbitration-eligible players, this also applies to those who are pre-arb as well.
For example, Hunter Stratton and Osvaldo Bido were non-tendered at last year's deadline.
Stratton was brought back on a minor-league contract, with Bido eventually signing with the Athletics.
The Pirates do have eight arbitration-eligible players. I’ll go into a little more detail on each later today:
RHP David Bednar
OF Bryan De La Cruz
1B/OF Connor Joe
LHP Bailey Falter
C Joey Bart
RHP Dennis Santana
RHP Johan Oviedo
RHP Colin Holderman
Some names are obvious to tender a contract, while some may not make it and become free agents.
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The collapse of the 2015 club has been routinely blamed on huge drops in production from their best players.
Their Top 5 most valuable players in 2016 were worth 10 less WAR than their Top 5 most valuable players in 2015 en route to a 20-game drop in the win column.
Is there a fan alive who realizes the 2023 club's Top 5 most valuable players *also* cratered to a 10 WAR drop in value last season? They did! Hayes, Suwinski, Reynolds, Keller, and Bednar were worth 10 less WAR last year and the club still won as many games as the year before.
For those who seem to get off wallowing in their own misery, that is a *good* outcome! To lose that much production from your core and still win as many games points to *positive* projection in the future.
Scratch back even half that value and this is a .500 ballclub without a single outside addition.
We scoff when they say their best shot at improvement is internal, but next year that turns out to be absolutely true. All the more reason to be bold and buy into this club instead of waiting to add. The Division is wide open.
You can argue Judge earned it but unanimously, with Bobby Witt putting up the highest percentage of team WAR in baseball for a low-budget team who made the playoff, is absolutely hilarious east coast bias.