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According to our playoff odds, there are currently 13 teams which feature playoff odds below 2%. As that number grows throughout the month, an increasingly large percentage of baseball fans will be bidding farewell to the hopes that this is the year for their preferred teams and looking to adopt other rooting interests. There’s no full replacement for the satisfaction of your team winning in October, but playoff baseball is still worth enjoying as much as you can. So, for whom do you root this month?

In recent years, Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated has popularized Team Entropy — spending your September rooting for the chaos generated by ties testing the limits of baseball’s tie-breaker system. With a range of 5.5 games separating the seven teams atop the AL Wild Card standings, Team Entropy is as in play as ever. The theoretical implications of a three- or four- or five-way tie for a Wild Card spot are delightful to imagine. It would be a blast to watch and, as someone with no skin in the game this year, I’d enjoy the hell out of it. That said, my strongest loyalties lie with another team — I’m not Team Entropy, I’m Team Cinderella.

For me, there’s no more exciting storyline than a September longshot bucking the odds and finding its way into the postseason. Two years ago, the Pirates had roughly a 20% chance to make the postseason on September 3rd according to The Baseball Gauge and then proceeded to secure themselves a spot in the Wild Card game. But I’d argue an even more exciting September Cinderella storyline unfolded a year before that when the 2013 Indians finished off the season by winning 15 of 17 and beating out the Rangers for a Wild Card Spot despite possessing 15% playoff odds at the start of that final 17-game run. Now that’s my idea of brilliant September baseball.

It’s been a few years and, though it may be a virtue, patience is certainly no fun. It’s time for a new September Cinderella team, so let’s go searching for one. For this exercise, I’m considering the cases of the five teams with playoff odds currently in the 3%-20% range.

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While trolls and naysayers on Twitter were crying bust after Houston Astros’ top prospect Alex Bregman began his major-league career by going 0-for his first 17 and 1-for his first 32, manager A.J. Hinch was moving him up to bat in the most important spot in his team’s lineup. At the time, Hinch cited his contact rate and exit velocity as indicators that Bregman’s at-bats were better than the results indicated.

Bregman’s now become a fixture in the second position of Houston’s batting order, starting there in each of the club’s last 33 games, and over the last month, he’s been among baseball’s most productive hitters. Seems like there must have been a grand adjustment, or a light bulb that went off. Astros hitting coach Dave Hudgens dispelled that notion before a recent game in Cleveland, reinforcing Hinch’s suggestions that Bregman was never actually struggling at all.

“The biggest thing is, he was having good at-bats and having tough luck, too,” Hudgens said. “He was getting good at-bats. He just needed a couple hits to fall. His at-bats were good even when he was struggling.”

Split Bregman’s short career into two near-halves, and it’s evident that Hinch and Hudgens aren’t just blowing smoke — the Bregman we saw the first three weeks really isn’t all that different than the Bregman that’s tore up the league over the last month.

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This week, we’re running a series of posts laying out the case for the most compelling candidates for the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award. These posts are designed to make an affirmative argument for their subject and are not intended to serve as comprehensive looks at every candidate on their own. The authors tasked with writing these posts may not even believe their subject actually deserves to win, but they were brave enough to make the case anyway. The goal of these posts is to lay out the potential reasons for voters to consider a variety of candidates and to allow the readers to decide which argument is most persuasive.

Other cases: Jose Altuve for AL MVP / Mookie Betts for AL MVP / Mike Trout for AL MVP / Manny Machado for AL MVP.

Josh Donaldson was the American League’s Most Valuable Player last season, edging out Mike Trout by receiving 23 of 30 first-place votes and earning 385 vote points, compared to Trout’s 304. Donaldson was the best player on a division-winning team and, by routinely delivering in key moments, led the league in Win Probability Added for his 93-win club.

Donaldson was great, and clutch, and a winner. And this year, he’s arguably gotten better. The wRC+ has gone up. He’s again been one of baseball’s most productive hitters in high-leverage situations. He remains one of the game’s top defensive third basemen. The reigning MVP has, in many ways, built on his award-winning season. But that’s not why he should win it again.

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Last night, the Nationals and Braves played an 11-inning game, and because it happened in September, 17 different pitchers were used between the two clubs. Ninety-nine batters, 17 pitchers: that’s a new pitcher every six batters, essentially. Yes, it went extra innings, and Stephen Strasburg had to leave the start with an injury, forcing the Nationals into an unplanned bullpen game, but 15 pitching changes is still just far too many for a Major League game. It’s a problem the league faces every September, when teams are able to carry everyone on their 40-man roster as active players if they so choose; the Nationals currently have 37 active players.

Of course, neither the individual teams nor the players are all that incentivized to change the system. Since the minor-league season ends around Labor Day, the roster expansion gives teams a chance to give their best prospects something to do in September, and gets them some valuable experience in the big leagues. Players like it, of course, because the promotion to the active roster comes with a big improvement in salary, and so guys who have been making minor-league wages are essentially rewarded with a significant end-of-season bonus. It’s hard to imagine either side is going to push hard to limit September roster sizes in the current CBA negotiations, as they both benefit from the current system, and the burden of longer, less enjoyable games are mostly carried by the fans, who don’t have a seat at the bargaining table.

But as the Braves and Nationals showed last night, there has to be a better way than this. Let’s run through a few options.

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In June, I talked to Jesse Winker following a 2-for-3 game that included a double and a walk. At the time, a big-league call-up seemed almost imminent. The top outfield prospect in the Cincinnati system was performing well for Triple-A Louisville, and with the Reds in rebuild mode, Great American Ballpark loomed right around the corner.

I wrote up the interview, then decided to hold it until the call-up came. Days later, Winker hurt his wrist and missed the next three-and-a-half weeks. Upon his return, he went 20-for-50 — albeit with limited power — while, 100 miles north, the big-league club continued to swim against the tide.

August came and went, and Winker went nowhere. As Reds fans scratched their heads, he remained in Louisville where he celebrated his 23rd birthday and finished the season with a .303/.397/.394 slash line. Winker went deep just three times in 448 plate appearances — he had 13 long balls last year in Double-A — and walked and struck out an equal number of times (59).

As of today, Winker is still awaiting his first big-league call-up. Three months after it was conducted, the interview won’t wait any longer. Here is what Winker had to say following the June game.

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Winker on his game against the Syracuse Chiefs: “I didn’t know too much about their starter [Paolo Espino]. We did have a scouting report, and I was talking to Hernan Iribarren about how he likes to attack left-handed hitters, but the game kind of dictates itself. With a certain amount of outs and a certain number of guys on base, pitchers are going to attack you a certain way.

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This week, we’re running a series of posts laying out the case for the most compelling candidates for the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award. These posts are designed to make an affirmative argument for their subject and are not intended to serve as comprehensive looks at every candidate on their own. The authors tasked with writing these posts may not even believe their subject actually deserves to win, but they were brave enough to make the case anyway. The goal of these posts is to lay out the potential reasons for voters to consider a variety of candidates and to allow the readers to decide which argument is most persuasive.

Other cases: Jose Altuve for AL MVP / Mookie Betts for AL MVP / Mike Trout for AL MVP.

It’s fair to say that, at places like FanGraphs, we spend a lot of time trying to remove teammates from the equation, strip everything down to its basic parts and determine a player’s individual value without context. We ignore things like RBI and runs — metrics that are often based not on a player’s own talent level, but how good a player’s teammates are around him. While there are differing viewpoints on the BBWAA’s suggestion that “actual value” ought to be considered in MVP voting — and how that term should be defined — if we choose to look at the standings, at the playoff races, and the individual teams and players on those teams, Manny Machado has been the most important player in the American League and has provided more actual value to his team this season than any other player. That is his case for Most Valuable Player.

Machado currently has 34 home runs and .306/.358/.565 overall line, good for a 140 wRC+. The 24-year-old has played to his usual incredible standard on defense, and his 28 runs above average on offense — coupled with his 13 runs above average on defense — has led to a WAR above six on the season. While there are other players who provide more offensive or defensive value, literally no one in baseball provides that combination of the two: no single player currently stands within 15 runs on offense of Machado and five runs on defense. There is not a player who has provided double-digit defensive numbers with even half of the offensive runs above average as Machado. There are few concerns that Machado’s defensive numbers are the product of a small-sample mirage, either: he’s averaged about 18 runs above average per 150 games in his career. On offense, Machado is chasing history. The only players to play at least 25% of their games at shortstop and hit more than 40 home runs are Alex Rodriguez and Ernie Banks. Machado has a chance to join them. Read the rest of this entry »

This week, we’re going to run a series of posts laying out the case for the most compelling candidates for the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award. These posts are designed to make an affirmative argument for their subject and are not intended to serve as comprehensive looks at every candidate on their own. The authors tasked with writing these posts may not even believe their subject actually deserves to win, but they were brave enough to make the case anyway. The goal of these posts is to lay out the potential reasons for voters to consider a variety of candidates and to allow the readers to decide which argument is most persuasive.

Other cases: Jose Altuve for AL MVP / Mike Trout for AL MVP.

Mookie Betts has been pretty amazing this season. As we move closer to that time when writers have to submit their MVP ballots, he is going to garner attention. While he may lose some votes to his teammate David Ortiz, and faces stiff competition from the likes of Jose Altuve, Josh Donaldson, Manny Machado, Mike Trout and others, Betts has a great case of his own.

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The consistency of Christian Yelich throughout his first three major-league seasons, each with identical wRC+ figures of 118, was both promising and, in some ways, perhaps maddening. On the one hand, a hitter with a 118 wRC+ is a good hitter. Especially at such a young age. On the other hand, Yelich has been a ground-ball machine, and with his 6-foot-4 frame, the adjustment to bump up the production a few ticks has seemed so obvious. He doesn’t have to be a slap hitter, and yet he largely has been. And, as with Kansas City’s Eric Hosmer, that inability to adjust — to hit the ball in the air with even slightly greater frequency — has been somewhat confounding.

Unlike Hosmer, Yelich has taken a step forward this year. Our own Jeff Sullivan took early notice of some changes back in May. Yelich was laying off low fastballs, getting himself more good pitches to hit. He was doing a better job of turning on the inside pitch, and a better job of using those offerings to create loft. For the year, Yelich has dropped his ground-ball rate by six points, and while that’s one of the larger decreases across the game, Yelich’s still putting the ball on the ground more than almost anyone.

But then this past week, Yelich showed something else new. You’ll be able to see it rather clearly in this image. Yelich’s already doubled his career-high in home runs, with 18. Here’s the first 15, from before last week, and then you’ll see three new ones pop up in the week since:

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This week, we’re going to run a series of posts laying out the case for the most compelling candidates for the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award. These posts are designed to make an affirmative argument for their subject and are not intended to serve as comprehensive looks at every candidate on their own. The authors tasked with writing these posts may not even believe their subject actually deserves to win, but they were brave enough to make the case anyway. The goal of these posts is to lay out the potential reasons for voters to consider a variety of candidates and to allow the readers to decide which argument is most persuasive.

Other cases: Mike Trout for AL MVP.

Mike Trout leads the American League in every major calculation of WAR: Baseball Prospectus’ version, Baseball-Reference’s version and our very own version right here at good ol’ FanGraphs. This unsurprising fact is true because the guy is so damn good at every aspect of baseball. He gets on base. He hits for power. He’s a shockingly productive base-runner. The only area in which he lags a bit is in defensive value, but his offense puts him so far above the competition that no one can surpass Mike Trout’s overall production on the field right now.

That said, let me tell you why Mike Trout isn’t the Most Valuable Player in the American League.

It’s not an easy argument to make. Sure, numbers can be manipulated but not to a degree that allows a straight-up objective argument for any American League player being better than Trout. Comparable? Perhaps. But better? That argument doesn’t exist. We’re here at FanGraphs because we like numbers and objective truths — and all of those indicators point to Mike Trout as the best player in the American League this season. But… I can’t believe I’m about to write these words in this cliché order… let’s talk about the meaning of the word valuable. I think there’s a remarkably valid interpretation of that word which makes this year’s most deserving AL Most Valuable Player candidate a diminutive second baseman from Houston.

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This week, we’re going to run a series of posts laying out the case for the most compelling candidates for the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award. These posts are designed to make an affirmative argument for their subject and are not intended to serve as comprehensive looks at every candidate on their own. The authors tasked with writing these posts may not even believe their subject actually deserves to win, but they were brave enough to make the case anyway. The goal of these posts is to lay out the potential reasons for voters to consider a variety of candidates and to allow the readers to decide which argument is most persuasive.

Two-and-a-half months from now, after the World Series is over and clubs are in full offseason mode, the BBWAA will announce its end-of-season awards winners live on MLB Network. Given the way the public conversation is going and the way voters have traditionally cast their ballots, it appears likely that someone other than Mike Trout will win the American League’s Most Valuable Player honors.

The MVP award traditionally goes to the best hitter on a playoff team. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but it’s been 13 years since a player won the AL MVP award without making the playoffs, and only one pitcher has won since the strike. Not every BBWAA writer believes in this particular definition of MVP, but enough of the population does to ensure its continued observance. National League voters have been a little more forgiving about making the playoffs, but Trout doesn’t play in the NL.

The Angels are not going to make the playoffs even if they win all of their remaining games, so Trout’s odds of actually winning the award are minimal. Unless the group of writers chosen to vote for AL MVP this year is particularly unrepresentative of the BBWAA as a whole, someone like Josh Donaldson or Mookie Betts will win. Donaldson and Betts have had excellent seasons and should be recognized for their performance, but if you apply any reasonable criteria beyond team performance, Mike Trout should be the AL MVP.

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