MLB MVP 2024: Predicting the Race After Dodgers Beat Yankees in World Series Bracket
The MVP awards in the American and National League are the most coveted individual awards a player can earn. This year, the biggest names in professional baseball are in contention to earn their respective league's prize.
The Yankees' Aaron Judge and Juan Soto had extraordinary statistical seasons while Shohei Ohtani continued to assert himself as this generation's greatest.
All the while Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor reminded the baseball world of who he is in a banner year in Queen.
Who will take home the hardware and why?
Find out with this preview.
National League Candidates
Shohei Ohtani completed a historic season as the designated hitter for the Los Angeles Dodgers, with 54 home runs and 59 stolen bases. It was a seemingly improbable feat accomplished by a generational player who some consider the greatest ever to lace a pair of cleats.
But is it enough to win him the National League MVP award?
On the surface, it is an easy answer. Still, upon further examination, no DH has ever won an MVP award, opening the door for the New York Mets' Francisco Lindor to win an award he more than deserved in 2024, if voters opt to remain consistent with history.
Lindor hit 33 home runs on 169 hits and drove in 91. His OPS+ of 138 was the best of his career.
He was the driving force behind the Met's turnaround and the locker room leader. He stepped up in the biggest moments, drove in runs when they mattered most and established himself as the toughest competition to Ohtani's history book season.
American League Candidates
It was Aaron Judge and everyone else in the American League.
Judge hit 58 home runs and drove in 144, league-highs in both, and tallied a slash line of .322/.458/.701. The on-base percentage and slug rate also led the league.
He was the engine behind the Yankees offense and proof of his importance to that team was never more apparent than the World Series when his bat went quiet and the Yankees offense followed.
If anyone was close to wrestling away the award from Judge, it was his teammate, Juan Soto, who hit 41 home runs and achieved career highs with 166 hits and 128 runs.
It was a career year for Soto, who will be the most coveted free agent this offseason but even then, what he accomplished still pales in comparison to another historically great year by the team captain and league's best home run masher.
Predictions
Lindor created questions late in the season but Ohtani and Judge's MVP seasons were never, and are not, in doubt.
They will take home the hardware as the most obvious NL and AL winners in years.
That Ohtani answered criticism over his DH status with a historic season the likes of which we may never see again only strengthened his case while all that Judge did for his team cannot be ignored.
They will win, maybe even unanimously in Judge's case, and continue to assert themselves as faces of this generation of Major League Baseball.