Winning the NL MVP award has been an uphill battle for everyone not named Shohei Ohtani this season, and while the field doesn’t have quite the uphill battle as the American League field does in trying to pry the award from Aaron Judge, Ohtani is well on his way to winning his third MVP award regardless of what happens over the last month of the season.
One analyst recently said a certain New York Mets player deserves consideration even with the year Ohtani is having.
The Athletic’s Will Sammon recently said that shortstop Francisco Lindor deserves to be in the conversation as his heroics down the stretch for the Mets have punctuated what has been an excellent season.
Francisco Lindor isn’t likely to win NL MVP this year. Shohei Ohtani exists, after all.
But…
Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said that “he’s right there with anybody in the league” in regards to the season Lindor is having.
This topic is coming up at a convenient time as Lindor hit a grand slam and a solo homer in Saturday’s 7-1 win over the San Diego Padres and now has a .982 OPS in August.
This conversation is fun since it’s never enjoyable to have a boring MVP race that is decided months before the season ends, but that’s exactly what’s happening here.
We can’t just bring this up after Lindor hits a grand slam and be so fickle as to forget that just the day before, Ohtani hit a walk-off two-out grand slam to become the fastest player to reach 40 homers and 40 steals in a season.
Being “in the conversation” is pointless if Lindor has no chance of winning the MVP.