There were episodes of “Perry Mason” more suspenseful than the American League MVP race. With Aaron Judge producing a historic power surge — his 25 homers are seven more than anyone else in the majors and put him on pace for 64 round-trippers, nine shy of Barry Bonds’ record and three more than Roger Maris’ pre-steroid era standard set in 1961 — in the midst of a contract year, only injury or an extended slump will bring him back to the pack.
Judge entered today with -110 odds of winning the MVP at BetMGM, far ahead of Shohei Ohtani (+400).
But the National League MVP race offers the intrigue thus far lacking in the Junior Circuit. With four potential Hall of Famers looking to top off their Cooperstown resume and Judge’s Big Apple rival mashing homers as the centerpiece of another World Series contender, the NL derby should remain hotly contested well into the summer.
Here are the top five candidates with their odds at BetMGM as of today.
1B Paul Goldschmidt, Cardinals (+200): This might be the season that vaults Goldschmidt on to the HOV lane to the Hall of Fame. He already had some awfully impressive Cooperstown credentials — a career WAR of 50.7, five top-10 MVP finishes and four Gold Gloves entering this season — before putting together the best year of his career at age 34. Goldschmidt is in the top five in each of the Triple Crown categories — he leads the NL with a .347 average — and his NL-best OPS of 1.070 would shatter his previous best of 1.005. Maintaining this pace and leading another sum-is-better-than-the-parts Cardinals squad to an NL Central crown could finally get him the MVP.
OF Mookie Betts, Dodgers (+400): The baseball season is long, part infinite: There was some buzz the Boston Red Sox didn’t do a very bad thing by trading a former MVP and potential Hall of Famer in the prime of his career when Betts was hitting under .200 as late as Apr. 26 and hitting under .250 as recently as May 14. Since then, he’s hitting .301 with 11 homers, 25 RBIs and a 1.005 OPS — a stretch that includes Betts going 2-for-30 in his last seven games. The Dodgers look like they’re in for another season-long battle for the NL West crown, this time with the San Diego Padres, and another superstar-caliber campaign from Betts getting them a bye into the Division Series and out of the best-of-three wild card round might give him a chance to join Frank Robinson as the only players to win MVPs in both leagues.
3B Manny Machado, 3B (+450): As with Goldschmidt, Machado’s big season — he’s on pace to shatter his career bests in OPS and batting average while anchoring an otherwise meager Padres lineup — is serving to remind just how far along he already is on a path to Cooperstown. Machado, who won’t turn 29 until next month, recorded his 1,500th career hit earlier this week and is ahead of the pace set by several 3,000-hit club members, including Craig Biggio, Tony Gwynn, Paul Molitor, Rafael Palmeiro and Dave Winfield. He’s slowed down a bit from a torrid early season pace and is “only” hitting .279 this month, but keeping the Padres in the NL West race will keep Machado in the MVP race.
1B Pete Alonso, Mets (+750): Per WAR, Alonso (1.7) isn’t even the third-most valuable player on his team. But while Brandon Nimmo is hitting just .192 this month as he comes back from a wrist injury and Max Scherzer is still at least 10 days away from returning to the rotation, Alonso keeps mashing — his 18 homers are twice as many as anyone else on the Mets while his 59 RBIs put him on pace for 146 RBIs, 22 more than Mike Piazza’s team record — as the lone true power threat in an old-fashioned lineup. Old-fashioned metrics such as homers, RBIs and leadership aren’t the MVP deciders they used to be, but Alonso is going to be an intriguing candidate, especially if the Mets can hold off the fast-charging Atlanta Braves in a suddenly tight NL East race.
OF/DH Bryce Harper, Phillies (+900): You know a race is loaded when a two-time winner ranks fifth among favorites. Harper has a pretty long road to a Hall of Fame-clinching third MVP and is likely going to be limited to designated hitter duties while dealing with an elbow injury. But Harper has surged over the last 13 games (.362 with five homers, 14 RBIs and an OPS of 1.180) along with the Phillies, who have gone 11-2 in that span under interim manager Rob Thomson to move within three games of the San Francisco Giants for the final wild card spot. The schedule is friendly to the Phillies — 18 of their final 98 games are against the woebegone Washington Nationals — which sets up a scenario in which Harper makes the difference as Philadelphia ends the NL’s longest playoff drought.
