Those might not be established traditions like Thanksgiving dinner, but they’re certainly a couple of drumsticks worth chewing on. (Think Republican party circa 2016.) The second-place finisher that year was Carlos Delgado, whose team finished 15 games out of first place. AL batting champion Jose Altuve of Houston was third. With this accomplishment, he is the first MVP from a losing team since Alex Rodriguez for Texas in 2003.
Advertisement
While Trout led the league with an astounding 116 walks (Betts had 49), Betts was second in the majors with 214 hits (Trout had 173, with 49 fewer plate appearances).
“I feel like good guys finish first” Bryant said, turning around the Leo Durocher opinion that “nice guys finish last”.
Bryant earned 29 of a possible 30 first-place votes, with the only dissenter putting him in second place. It was also the third straight season where he exclusively played center field. After hitting.326 with 49 steals and 30 homers, he received 140 vote points, beating Yoenis Cespedes and Yu Darvish as the 2012 Rookie of the Year.
Ortiz, who finished sixth in the voting, appeared in the top 10 on all 30 ballots and garnered 147 points overall. Addison Russel received one sixth-place vote, while Kyle Hendricks picked up one ninth-place vote.
The Red Sox had a CY Young victor in Rick Porcello, who won over Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander despite Verlander recording more first place votes. Corey Seager of the Los Angeles Dodgers finished in third place, taking home 11 second place votes. He finished 11th in the NL MVP vote previous year.
However, despite those numbers, Trout was considered an underdog to win the award because the Angels had the fourth-worst record in the AL (74-88) and Betts, who had stats that closely rivaled Trout’s, went to the playoffs.
“As a mindset, I always told myself that”, he said. “I mean he texted me and I said the same thing to him, I said if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have been able to do this”. “It was just a surreal moment, one of the moments you can’t really explain”.
The 2016 Angels never even contended, which is why many observers felt Trout would lose the award to Mookie Betts, whose Boston Red Sox won their division. Within his.269 World Series batting average, Bryant smacked two home runs and scored six times, including a crucial run in Game 7. Bryant made remarkable strikes from his outstanding debut season, reducing his strikeouts from 199 to 154 and raising his OPS by 81 points. One wonders if those same voters, given a National League MVP ballot, would ding front-runner Kris Bryant for the reverse – that the Cubs, who won the National League Central by almost 20 games, would have finished first with or without their best player. He was also judged by some as the best baserunner – beyond stolen bases, this takes into account the ability to take an extra base, how well a runner gets reads on balls, etc.
Advertisement
Bryant, 24, had an outstanding follow up to his 2015 campaign for which he won the NL Rookie of the Year Award. He joins Cal Ripken Jr. He hit 29 home runs and 32 doubles. He led the NL with 47 doubles, a.595 slugging percentage and a.985 OPS.
