Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

Tight playoff races, milestone and award chases, and looking ahead to the offseason — these are the things I love about September baseball. One of the first decisions to be made after the World Series is determining who will receive qualifying offers, which currently projects to be valued at $21.2 million.

As a quick reminder before we continue, the qualifying offer is set at a price of the mean average annual value of the 125 highest-AAV players in the league. Once it’s offered to a player, he has 10 days to decide whether to accept or decline the offer. If the player accepts, he’s locked into 2025 at that salary, though he can always negotiate a contract extension that may override the qualifying offer. If the player declines and signs with a new team, his new team will forfeit at least one 2025 draft pick, and his old team will receive exactly one ’25 draft pick.

With less than three weeks left in the regular season, let’s run through which pending free agents could be getting qualifying offers come November.

Locks to Receive Qualifying Offers

These decisions are all straightforward. Juan Soto, Corbin Burnes, Alex Bregman, Max Fried, Willy Adames, Pete Alonso, Anthony Santander, Jurickson Profar, Teoscar Hernández, and Sean Manaea (once he exercises his opt out) are all having seasons somewhere between strong and elite. They’re all sure to reject the offer in favor of longer-term deals.

Likely to Receive, Plausible to Accept

Paul Goldschmidt is a tough act to follow, but Christian Walker has done well since taking over for him after the Diamondbacks traded Goldschmidt to the Cardinals in December 2018. Walker has been especially great the last three years, with 10.9 WAR, a 122 wRC+, and excellent defense at first base. He’s not spectacular, but he’s very good, and if the Diamondbacks are fine with running a record payroll again, they’d be wise to keep him around.

Walker’s got one big drawback, though: his age. Next year will be his age-34 season, and while he’d certainly like to earn a multi-year deal in free agency, the qualifying offer might tamp down his market to the point that accepting it would net him more money in 2025. He also might not want to risk rejecting it, hanging out on the open market for months, and then having to sign a prove-it deal. He’s a core member of a team that went to the World Series last year, is almost certainly going to return to the playoffs again this season, and is built to contend next year, too. Additionally, he seems comfortable in the desert. For all of these reasons, he is probably the player most likely to return to his team on a qualifying offer.

Likely to Receive, Likely to Reject

Tyler O’Neill has popped 30 home runs in his best and healthiest season since 2021, with his wRC+ just one point away from tying that career year. On the surface, that makes him seem like a slam dunk to receive the qualifying offer, and a slam dunk to reject it. He’s entering his age-30 season, and coming off his strong performance this year, he could look to get a three- or four-year deal on the open market. The one thing that gives me pause, though, is O’Neill’s injury history and how that might influence teams’ willingness to offer him a multi-year deal worth an average annual value of roughly $20 million. Understanding this, if the Red Sox give O’Neill the qualifying offer, he could decide it’s in his best interest to accept it. Meanwhile, Boston might not want to pay him $22.1 million next year, instead opting to use that money to bolster other areas of its roster. I still think the Red Sox will extend him a qualifying offer, and that he will turn it down, but it’s not a sure thing.

There’s an argument to be made that Michael Wacha is having the best season of his career; it’s definitely his healthiest since 2017. Provided he avoids injury the rest of the way, he’ll eschew his $16 million player option in favor of hitting the open market once again, leaving the Royals with a tough decision. On the one hand, this version of Wacha is worth $22.1 million; on the other, the injury concerns don’t just go away just because he’s been mostly healthy this year. As unlikely as Wacha would be to accept, the Royals might also prefer to eliminate any chance that he’d do so and instead allocate that money to lengthen their lineup. Having a rotation anchored by Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo would make losing Wacha an easier pill to swallow.

Total Toss-Ups

If Ha-Seong Kim had reached free agency before this season instead of after it, he probably would have earned a deal of at least $100 million following his 4.3 WAR, 110 wRC+ campaign in 2023. But right shoulder inflammation could keep him on the sidelines for the rest of the season, and his run values as a hitter, fielder, and baserunner have all gone down considerably in 2024. That said, even in this down year, he’s put up 2.6 WAR and is still only 28; that is probably worth $22.1 million. However, considering the Padres have a glut of infielders already, they may not want to give Kim the option to accept a qualifying offer.

Luis Severino is having his healthiest season since 2018, when he put up 5.4 WAR across 191 1/3 innings, made the All-Star team, and received Cy Young votes as the ace of the Yankees. But he’s a completely different pitcher now than he was then. His velocity is still there, but he no longer has the swing-and-miss stuff to anchor a rotation. Even with the Mets expected to lose two other starters to free agency, I don’t think they’d want to pay him the salary of a no. 2 starter when, at this point, he profiles more like a no. 3 or 4.

There may be no starter in the league more enigmatic than Nick Pivetta. The stuff has always been great, but the command has been … less so. I’m of the opinion that he’d do surprisingly well on the open market, and in my head I’m comparing him to Yusei Kikuchi, who got three years and $36 million from the Blue Jays coming off a similarly uneven (and probably worse) few years. But the Red Sox already have Brayan Bello, Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford, and Lucas Giolito (assuming he recovers well from internal brace surgery) locked into next year’s rotation, and they may invest the $22.1 million elsewhere.

Unlikely to Receive

For other teams, I’d say that it would be a no-brainer to extend Shane Bieber a qualifying offer, but $22.1 million is a lot of money for the Guardians. If Bieber were to accept it, he could represent 20% or more of their payroll for 2025, and he might not be available until the second half of the season anyway after undergoing Tommy John surgery in April. Considering his track record and how well he pitched in his first couple starts of the season, a multi-year deal at a lower average annual value — with the cash backloaded pretty heavily — should be easy for Bieber to secure.

There aren’t any pending free agent relievers with the pedigree of Josh Hader, who was an obvious qualifying offer recipient and rejector last offseason. Clay Holmes started his season pitching like he’d end up receiving one, but he’s lost his closer job and has probably worn out his welcome in New York, frankly. On the other side of the coin is Jeff Hoffman, who’s been nothing short of excellent for two seasons in Philadelphia. But he’s entering his age-32 season and doesn’t have nearly the track record of other relievers who have received qualifying offers in the past. I’d be shocked if he gets one.

Ineligible to Receive

As a reminder, players who’ve appeared for multiple teams in the same season are ineligible to be tendered a qualifying offer. That eliminates Kikuchi and Jack Flaherty. Also ineligible are players who’ve received one in the past, so that rules out Joc Pederson, Max Scherzer, Nathan Eovaldi (assuming he declines his player option), Cody Bellinger (ditto), and, should he opt out, Gerrit Cole.

One of my favorite pieces I wrote last year was about players whose baserunning value was at odds with their footspeed: specifically, those who were squandering the God-given advantage of their legs. A year later, I have a new crop of baserunners to write about. We also have an updated version of our metric for calculating baserunning value (BsR) in 2024. So, I decided the topic was worth a fresh look.

I took a pretty subjective approach when I wrote about this last season. I went through the sprint speed leaderboard on Baseball Savant, compared it to our BsR leaderboard, and scanned for players who stood out. This time around, I decided I could be a little more scientific. I made a spreadsheet featuring every player who has taken at least 300 plate appearances and recorded at least 100 competitive runs this season – nice, round, arbitrary cut-off points to limit small sample size randomness. Then, I determined the percentile value for each player’s BsR, as well as the percentile value for two different measurements of speed: sprint speed and the time it takes to run from home plate to first base (HP to 1B).

As I compared the results, three names immediately caught my eye: Jo Adell, Jeff McNeil, and Mickey Moniak. Adell has, by far, the widest gap between his sprint speed percentile (86th) and BsR percentile (9th). That’s approximately a 77% difference; no other runner has a gap bigger than 60%. Meanwhile, McNeil boasts the widest gap between his HP to 1B percentile (86th) and BsR percentile (19th). Finally, Moniak ranks among the top 20% in both sprint speed and HP to 1B, yet he ranks among the bottom third in BsR. He has the third-largest gap between his sprint speed (84th) and BsR (32nd) and the fifth-largest gap between his HP to 1B (83rd) and BsR. He is the only player with one of the five largest gaps in both areas: Read the rest of this entry »

We’re running out of season. With the field of contenders winnowed to the point that only two teams have Playoff Odds between 8% and 80%, much of the intrigue beyond jockeying for seeding concerns a race against the clock. Players have only so much time to recover from injuries, particularly new ones, and so some returns are in doubt. Their availability could very well affect how the playoffs unfold.

On that front, it was a weekend featuring bad news for some contenders as they reckoned with their latest bad breaks, figuratively and literally. Gavin Stone, the unexpected stalwart of the Dodgers rotation, landed on the injured list due to shoulder inflammation, while Jeff McNeil, one of the Mets’ hottest hitters, suffered a fractured wrist. Whit Merrifield, who’s done good work filling in at second base for the Braves, broke a bone in his foot, and, if we shift focus to the fringes of the Wild Card race, the Mariners Luis Castillo strained a hamstring. Each of these situations deserves a closer look, so pitter patter, let’s get at ‘er. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, my colleague Jay Jaffe noted that Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor had just entered the list of top 20 shortstops in JAWS, his system for assessing players’ Hall of Fame worthiness, which factors in a mix of career value (WAR) and peak value (WAR over their seven best seasons). That’s not the only notable thing about Lindor’s season, of course, as after a slow start to 2024, he has forced his way into the NL MVP conversation. With a .270/.339/.492 line, 135 wRC+, and 7.2 WAR, he may be having his best season in a career that has him looking increasingly Cooperstown-bound.

It seems almost absurd, but Lindor’s OPS didn’t take even the tiniest of peeks over .700 until June 5 — he’s been so hot that you’d think he was produced in Brookhaven’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. With Shohei Ohtani fighting for the first ever 50-50 season, Lindor may now be the biggest obstacle to the former’s coronation. Given the relatively modest impact even the biggest baseball stars have in comparison to their peers in football or basketball, no individual can really carry a team, but Lindor is certainly trying his best: The Mets have the second-most wins in baseball since the start of June (54), with the offense going from 17th to sixth in seasonal wRC+ over the same timeframe:

In that stretch, Lindor has edged out the other NL hitters by nearly 2 WAR. One of the odder consequences of the shape of Lindor’s performance is that it may result in a Hall of Fame player having missed the All-Star Game in the best season of his career. In fact, despite ranking fifth in WAR among hitters since the start of 2020 (behind Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Freddie Freeman, and José Ramírez), Lindor hasn’t made an All-Star squad since 2019. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for a player who plays in baseball’s largest market and has a $341 million contract to be underrated, but here we are!

Ranking 20th at your position in JAWS is already a mighty impressive feat, but it’s even more impressive when you’re only 30 years old, meaning there’s a lot of time left to add heft to your career WAR, which makes up half of JAWS. With Lindor’s (relatively) disappointing 2021 Mets debut even farther back in the rear-view mirror, it seems like a good time to provide an update on his rest-of-career projections:

Even projecting a typical decline through his 30s — there’s a reason the vast majority of Hall of Fame cases are largely built when players are in their 20s — Lindor’s mean ol’ ZiPS forecast offers ample opportunity for him to put up some seriously gaudy career totals. The median ZiPS projection has Lindor finishing with 400 career homers on the nose, enough to rank him as one of the best power-hitting shortstops in baseball history:

Whether you look at players who primarily played shortstop or only consider performance while playing the position, Lindor features prominently. His 30 home runs this season gives him 245 for his career, 10th all-time among shortstops, while finishing with 400 would be enough to put him fourth all-time. If we look only at home runs while playing short, Lindor is sixth and is just over 100 homers behind Cal Ripken Jr. for the top spot. Given that Lindor is an elite defensive player, it doesn’t seem like he’s ticketed for an easier position anytime soon, short of a serious injury that necessitates a move.

Before last season, I gave ZiPS the ability to project career JAWS. In an era that’s rich in star shortstops, Lindor is currently projected to finish at the top of this generation. Here’s a projected JAWS chart, once all the currently active major league players have headed off into the sunset:

Even just the median projection would make Lindor a shoo-in on his first Hall of Fame ballot and put him meaningfully ahead of the other shortstops who debuted in the 21st century — for now, at least. If Bobby Witt Jr. keeps his beast mode switched on, he’ll rocket up this list fairly quickly (Gunnar Henderson just missed the list, along with Trea Turner). Given his already impressive place in history, I think Lindor would still make the Hall pretty easily even if his career ended tomorrow, as the Sandy Koufax of shortstops. The Mets’ penchant for sudden, often hilarious implosions makes watching them sometimes feel like an especially cringe-inducing episode of The Office. But if you aren’t tuning into their games, you’re missing out on the peak of a possible future Hall of Famer. And as countless players from Mike Trout to Miguel Cabrera to Ken Griffey Jr. have demonstrated, the opportunity to see these players at their best is frequently far more fleeting than we hope.

There’s only one playoff race this year. That might not sound right to you. The Yankees and Orioles are deadlocked in the AL East. The Guardians are holding the Twins and Royals at bay in the Central. The Padres are looking menacingly northwards toward LA. But those aren’t playoff races, because everyone involved is making the playoffs either way. The only race where the winner is in and the loser is out is the one for the last NL Wild Card spot, and it’s taking place between divisional rivals: the Mets and the Braves.

It’s weird seeing so little actual drama in September. Those two teams are the only ones with playoff odds between 20% and 80% right now. That’s rare for this time of year. There were seven such teams last year, six in 2022, and three in the top-heavy 2021 season. Even if we go back to the 10-team playoff era, the years from 2015-2019 averaged four teams in that 20-80% range with a month left in the season. Despite no truly dominant teams, the playoff races are abnormally set in stone this year.

That only makes the last race more exciting, though. In one corner, we have the Braves, who came into the year as the best team in baseball. They were so good, in fact, that we used them as a model when delving into some new depth chart data this spring. What might the Braves look like if they lost Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuña Jr. to injury? Our model thought they’d be a .551 team. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cardinals survived Willson Contreras‘ first extended absence due to injury, going 24-16 while their catcher/designated hitter was sidelined for six weeks due to a fractured left forearm. Despite his loss, the ineffectiveness of cornerstones Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, and a host of other issues, they were still in contention for a playoff spot when the July 30 trade deadline approached — not in great shape, but with a roster worth augmenting for the stretch run. But by the time Contreras suffered a fractured middle finger on his right hand as a result of an errant Pablo López pitch on August 24, it was clear that this wouldn’t be the Cardinals’ year. They had already shaken up their roster with a couple of notable demotions, and by the end of the month, they let deadline acquisition Tommy Pham depart via waivers.

The Cardinals aren’t the only team whose playoff hopes withered some time between the trade deadline and Labor Day, just the one that made the most noise on the transaction wire. Based on the changes in our Playoff Odds, here are the teams that suffered the steepest declines from the close of play on July 29 (i.e., the day before the deadline) through Monday:

Read the rest of this entry »

Direct Links (Please see full job postings below):

Senior Data Scientist
Data Scientist

Senior Data Scientist, Baseball Analytics

Location: Citi Field – Queens, New York

Summary:
The New York Mets are seeking a Senior Data Scientist in Baseball Analytics. The Senior Data Scientist will build, test, and present statistical models that inform decision-making in all facets of Baseball Operations. This position requires strong background in complex statistics and data analytics, as well as the ability to communicate statistical model details and findings to both a technical and non-technical audience. Prior experience in or knowledge of baseball is a plus, but is not required.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

• Build statistical models to answer a wide variety of baseball-related questions affecting the operations of the organization using advanced knowledge of statistics and data analytics and exercising appropriate discretion and judgment regarding development of statistical models

• Interpret data and report conclusions drawn from their analyses

• Present model outputs in an effective way, both for technical and non-technical audiences

• Communicate well with both the Baseball Analytics team as well as other Baseball Operations personnel to understand the parameters of any particular research project

• Provide advice on the desired outputs from the data engineering team, and guidance to the Baseball Systems team on how best to present model results

• Assist with recruiting, hiring, and mentoring new analysts in the Baseball Analytics department

• Evaluate potential new data sources and technologies to determine their validity and usefulness

• Consistently analyze recent research in analytics that can help improve the modeling work done by the Baseball Analytics department

Qualifications:

• Ph.D. in statistics or a related field, or equivalent professional experience

• Strong background in a wide variety of statistical techniques

• Strong proficiency in R, Python, or similar, as well as strong proficiency in SQL

• Basic knowledge of data engineering and front-end development is a plus, for the purpose of communicating with those departments

• Strong communication skills

• Ability to work cooperatively with others, and to take control of large-scale projects with little or no daily oversight

Salary Range: $115,000 – $145,000

For technical reasons, we strongly advise to not use an .edu email address when applying. Thank you very much.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

Data Scientist, Baseball Analytics

Location: Citi Field – Queens, New York

Summary:
The New York Mets are seeking a Data Scientist in Baseball Analytics. The Data Scientist will build, test, and present statistical models that inform decision-making in all facets of Baseball Operations. This position requires strong background in complex statistics and data analytics, as well as the ability to communicate statistical model details and findings to both a technical and non-technical audience. Prior experience in or knowledge of baseball is a plus, but is not required.

Qualifications:

• Masters and/or BS degree in statistics or a related field

• Professional experience in a quantitative position is a plus

• Strong background in a wide variety of statistical techniques

• Strong proficiency in R, Python, or similar, as well as strong proficiency in SQL

• Basic knowledge of data engineering and front-end development is a plus, for the purpose of communicating with those departments

• Strong communication skills

• Ability to work cooperatively with others, and to take control of large-scale projects with little or no daily oversight

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

• Build statistical models to answer a wide variety of baseball-related questions affecting the operations of the organization using advanced knowledge of statistics and data analytics and exercising appropriate discretion and judgment regarding development of statistical models

• Interpret data and report conclusions drawn from their analyses

• Present model outputs in an effective way, both for technical and non-technical audiences

• Communicate well with both the Baseball Analytics team as well as other Baseball Operations personnel to understand the parameters of any particular research project

• Provide advice on the desired outputs from the data engineering team, and guidance to the Baseball Systems team on how best to present model results

• Evaluate potential new data sources and technologies to determine their validity and usefulness

• Consistently analyze research in analytics that can help improve the modeling work done by the Baseball Analytics department

Salary Range: $80,000 – $110,000

For technical reasons, we strongly advise to not use an .edu email address when applying. Thank you very much.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the New York Mets.

While Shohei Ohtani hasn’t pitched this year after undergoing UCL reconstruction surgery last fall, he has found another area of the game in which he could excel while terrorizing opposing pitchers. The 30-year-old superstar blew past his previous career high in stolen bases in late July, and on Friday night against the Rays he swiped his 40th bag of the year. Five innings later, he collected his 40th home run to join the 40-40 club in spectacular style, when he clobbered a first-pitch, walk-off grand slam. Unfortunately, Ronald Acuña Jr.’s torn ACL deprived him of a chance to follow up last year’s unprecedented combination of 41 homers and 73 steals, but it’s not out of the question we could have another 40-40 player this season, namely José Ramírez, and at least a couple more 30-30 ones.

I’ll get to those, but first, it’s Sho time. Prior to this year, Ohtani had reached 40 homers twice (46 in 2021 and a league-leading 44 last year) but had stolen just 20 bases or more twice (26 in 2021 and 20 last year). Unburdened by the demands of pitching this year, and playing for a new team with much higher aspirations than the Angels, he’s been able to withstand more wear and tear on his legs, has had more time to study opposing pitchers, and has come to appreciate the extra dimension he can add to his new team.

“I think he has bought into stealing bases, understands the value of the stolen base, getting 90 feet,” manager Dave Roberts told The Athletic earlier this month. “He’s in a pennant race now. And I don’t think he’s been in a pennant race in his big-league career. So his enhanced focus is not a surprise to me.” Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — On June 2, the Mets’ season was looking grim. At Citi Field, Jake Diekman served up a two-run ninth inning home run to the Diamondbacks’ Ketel Marte, turning a 4-3 lead into a 5-4 deficit. Within a matter of minutes, the Mets fell to 24-35, a season-worst 11 games below .500. After last summer’s deadline sell-off, 2024 wasn’t supposed to be their year, and two months into the season, it seemed clear that was the case. In the two and a half months since, the Mets have reeled off the majors’ fourth-best record (41-26), climbing back into the NL Wild Card race, though an 8-10 record in August has kept them on the outside looking in.

This week has already been full of ups and downs. On Monday night against the Orioles, Francisco Alvarez hit an epic no-look walk-off home run to pull the Mets to within a game and a half of the third NL Wild Card spot. The homer opened what has suddenly become a crucial stretch of the Mets’ season — 10 games in a row against contenders, the last seven of them on the road — with a bang. But the momentum did not carry over to Tuesday, when starter Jose Quintana turned in his fourth sour outing in a row. The 35-year-old lefty served up two big homers while plodding through five innings, while the offense was held to just two hits over six innings by starter Dean Kremer. A late-inning comeback not only fell short but produced a groan-worthy LOLMets moment.

Still, the Mets’ season has featured more good days than bad in recent months, and regardless of what happens going forward, Monday’s win was one for the books. The Mets had squandered a 3-1 lead when starter David Peterson overstayed his welcome in what had otherwise been an excellent outing. With two outs in the seventh, he balked in a run, then served up a game-tying homer to Ramón Urías on his 98th pitch of the night. Meanwhile, from the fifth inning on, 11 out of 14 Mets struck out against starter Trevor Rogers and relievers Colin Selby, Keegan Akin, and Seranthony Domínguez before Alvarez stepped in.  Read the rest of this entry »

There’s quite a lot of bickering in sports, and not many things bring out more vehement disagreement than discussions involving who should get various awards. Even now, nearly 30 years later, when I think about Mo Vaughn beating out Albert Belle for the 1995 AL MVP, or Dante Bichette finishing second in that year’s NL race despite putting up just 1.8 WAR, I have to suppress a compelling desire to flip over a table. This year, thankfully, it’s hard to imagine the MVP voting results will be anywhere near as egregious as the ones we saw in ’95. That’s because the way MVP voters in the BBWAA evaluate players has changed dramatically since then.

Aaron Judge has easily the best traditional case for the AL MVP award if the season ended today. He leads the league in two of the main old-school batting stats: home runs and RBI. Bobby Witt Jr. and his .347 batting average is all that would stand between Judge and the Triple Crown. For what it’s worth, Judge would win the MLB Triple Crown, with twice the emeralds, rather than the AL one.

For most of baseball history, beginning with the first time the BBWAA handed out the award in 1931, numbers like these usually would’ve been good enough to win MVP honors. It also would’ve helped Judge’s case that the Yankees have one of the best records in baseball. If this were 30 years ago, Judge would all but officially have this thing wrapped up, barring an injury or the worst slump of his career.

But it’s the 2020s, not the 1990s, and I doubt anyone would dispute too strenuously the notion that ideas on performance, and their related awards, have shifted in recent years. Now, when talking about either an advanced offense statistic like wRC+ or a modern framework statistic like WAR, Judge certainly is no slouch. He currently leads baseball with 8.3 WAR, and his 218 wRC+ would be the eighth-highest seasonal mark in AL/NL history, behind only seasons by Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, and Ted Williams. But by WAR, his lead is a small one, roughly two-tenths of a run (!) over Bobby Witt Jr., who has surged since the start of July (.439/.476/.803, 247 wRC+ in 33 games) to supplant Gunnar Henderson as Judge’s main competition for the award. Henderson was right there with Judge for much of the early part of the season, and though he’s fallen off a bit, he’s still fourth in the majors with 6.4 WAR and capable of catching fire again at any time. With a month and a half left, Juan Soto can’t be completely counted out either.

A similar dynamic persists in the NL. Shohei Ohtani has looked a lot like the obvious MVP choice for much of the season, as he’s done, well, one half of the Shohei Ohtani thing: He is murdering baseballs and pitchers’ dreams. But as with Judge, there’s some serious competition when you look at WAR. Ohtani stands at the top, but by a fraction of a run ahead of Elly De La Cruz. Ketel Marte and Francisco Lindor are both within five runs of Ohtani, and nobody serious has ever claimed you can use WAR to conclusively settle disputes on differences that small. De La Cruz has more WAR than Ohtani since the start of June, and the latter two have more than the Dodgers slugger since the beginning of May. Marcell Ozuna, who has strong traditional stats (.302 BA, 35 HR, 90 RBI) shouldn’t be completely discounted if the Braves show signs of life; those numbers still matter, just not to the extent that they once did. With a fairly wide open race, there are plenty of stars with name power lurking just behind the leaders, such as Bryce Harper and Freddie Freeman.

The answer of who should win the MVP awards is one we probably can’t answer beyond me giving my opinion, which I won’t do given the likelihood that I will be voting for one of the awards. But who will win the MVP awards is something we can make a reasonable stab at predicting. It’s actually been a while since I approached the topic, but I’ve long had a model derived from history to project the major year-end awards given out by the BBWAA. It was due for some updates, because the voters have changed. Some of the traditional things that voters prioritized, like team quality, have been de-emphasized by voters, though not completely. And the biggest change is the existence of WAR. Whatever flavor you prefer, be it Baseball Reference, Baseball Prospectus, or the smooth, creamy swirl that can be scooped by our display window, this general stat has changed a lot about how performance is perceived.

There have been 47 MVP awards presented to position players who finished their seasons with fewer than 6.0 WAR; that’s more than a quarter of all hitter MVP seasons. However, excluding 2020, a hitter has not won an MVP without reaching that threshold since ’06, when both winners fell short: the NL’s Ryan Howard had 5.92 WAR, while AL winner Justin Morneau had 3.77 WAR.

When modeling the data, I use all the votes, not just the winners, and WAR is a pretty lousy variable when predicting voter behavior throughout most of history. That’s not surprising on its face since we’ve had WAR to use for only the last 15 years or so, making it impossible for most awards to have explicitly considered it. But there also appears to be only marginal implicit consideration, in which voters based their votes on the things that go into WAR without using the actual statistic. There’s a great deal of correlation between winning awards and high WARs in history, but that’s only because two of the things that voters have really liked, home runs and batting average, also tend to lead to higher WAR numbers. As an independent variable, WAR doesn’t help explain votes very well. That is, until about the year 2000.

If you only look at votes since 2000, all of a sudden, WAR goes from an irrelevant variable to one of the key components in a voting model. Voters in 2002 may not have been able to actually look at WAR, but even before Moneyball was a thing, baseball writers were paying much more attention to OBP, SLG, and defensive value at least partially because of analysts like Bill James, Pete Palmer, and John Thorn in the 1980s and ’90s. Now, depending on your approach, once you deal with the correlations between variables, WAR comes out as one of or the most crucial MVP variable today. Could you imagine a world, even just 20 years ago, in which owners would propose paying players based on what sabermetrics nerds on the internet concocted?

The model I use, which I spent most of last week updating, takes modern voting behaviors into consideration. I use all three WAR variants listed above because it’s not clear which one most voters use. Here is how ZiPS currently sees the two MVP races this season:

This model thinks Judge is the favorite, but his odds to lose are nearly a coin flip. Witt is the runner-up, followed by Soto, Henderson, and the somehow-still-underrated José Ramírez. If we look at a model that considers all the BBWAA-voting years rather than just the 21st century results, this becomes a much more lopsided race.

Over in the NL, the updated ZiPS model sees a race that’s far more uncertain than the one in the AL.

Ohtani comes out as the favorite, but he has less than a one-in-three chance to win it. Behind him are the other WAR leaders, plus Ozuna.

Some of the WAR leaders without strong Triple Crown numbers, like Lindor, drop off considerably based on the entire history of voting, while Ozuna becomes a co-favorite with Ohtani. I haven’t talked about pitchers much in this article; they’re still included in the model, but none make the top 10 in the projected probabilities. Simply put, the willingness to vote pitchers for MVP seems to have declined over time. ZiPS doesn’t think any pitcher has been as dominant this season as the two most recent starters to win the award, Clayton Kershaw in 2014 and Justin Verlander in ’11, and closers these days typically can’t expect to get more than a few stray votes at the bottom of ballots.

It’ll be interesting to see how voting continues to change moving forward. In any case, no matter who you support for the MVP awards, strap in because there’s still plenty of baseball left to be played.