By Ben Simon, Staff Writer
The Major League Baseball (MLB) regular season is looking to wrap-up soon, and what an eventful season it has been! With the continued excellence of the best two-way player the sport has ever seen, a set of players gunning to be the best regular season team ever, and an expanded playoffs that promises to push excitement to the television screen, among others, there is plenty to talk about.
THE MOST LIKELY MVPS
The likely National League (NL) MVP is not hard to guess at this point. Paul Goldschmidt of the St. Louis Cardinals, despite being in his age 34 season, is putting up incredible numbers against the entire league this year, with a major league leading batting average (.329) and on-base percentage (.417). No other player in the National League has even come close to matching the powerhouse stats that Goldschmidt has produced.
Guessing who the American League (AL) MVP is going to be is another story. On one side, there’s Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees, who’s primed to break the AL home run record of 61, set by another Yankee, Roger Maris, in 1961. In addition, Judge is leading the league in many categories, including offensive wins above replacement [WAR] (8.4), on base + slugging percentage [OPS] (1.090), extra base hits (77), and win probability added [WPA] (6.4), among others.
On the other side is Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels, who continues to be one of the most astonishing players in the history of baseball for his unmatched two-way excellence. Ohtani doesn’t lead any categories apart from strike-outs per nine innings [K/9] (11.978), but it is still unbelievable that there is a player in the MLB that simultaneously has a .267 batting average and a 2.58 earned run average [ERA]. Simply put, Ohtani is the ultimate unicorn.
So who’s going to win AL MVP? Well, it depends on what you value more. If you think that a record-breaking player deserves the distinction, it should go to Judge. If you think that a player whose existence defies all that has been taught about the sport, it should go to Ohtani. Whatever the case, it will go to a very deserving player.
DODGER DOMINATION OF ASTRONOMICAL PROPORTIONS
What is there to say about the Los Angeles Dodgers that doesn’t just boil down to them being very, very good? Leading the league both in OPS (.790) and ERA (2.88), the team is flowing with talent on both the batting and pitching fronts, and with a chance to break both the franchise single-season wins record, and, more unbelievably, the MLB all-time single-season wins record, the team promises to be a daunting opponent in the playoffs.
In the American League, the Houston Astros have been just as dominant. With probable AL Cy Young winner Justin Verlander—who has been pitching a lights out season at age 39! —and down-ballot AL MVP player Yordan Alvarez, who at age 25 has already become an offensive juggernaut, leading the way, the Astros have been playing incredibly well throughout the entire season, leaving the possibility open of winning a World Series that may finally make up for their cheating-stained championship in 2017.
UNREAL ROOKIES
2022 has been a wonderful year for young players entering MLB. With athletes like Julio Rodriguez, Bobby Witt Jr, Michael Harris II, and Nolan Gorman entering on the offensive end, and figures like Spencer Strider and George Kirby entering on the pitching end, the sport looks to have a bevy of up and coming stars who will take the sport by storm in the coming years.
PLAYOFF PICTURE
Let’s go through a rapid-fire painting of how the post-season is currently looking!
- The Philadelphia Phillies and Seattle Mariners are primed to end the two longest on-going playoff droughts in the MLB
- The Baltimore Orioles, in spite of being sellers at the trade deadline, may make the playoffs as a surprise wild-card team
- The Cardinals have once again risen to become surprise contenders, under both veterans such as Albert Pujols, Paul Goldschmidt, and Adam Wainwright and young players such as Nolan Gorman
- If the AL Central leading Cleveland Guardians were in the more competitive AL East, they would currently be completely out of the playoff picture
- The Atlanta Braves are once again having a late-season boom, with their straddling the #1 seed, which could guarantee a first-round bye in the playoffs, in the NL East with the New York Mets
- The Yankees, despite having posted a sub-500 winning percentage (0.431) since the all-star break, are still five games ahead of their closest divisional rival, the Tampa Bay Rays
Lastly, if I were to make a few predictions for what could happen in the 2022 playoffs, they would go as follows:
- The Dodgers, despite their regular season dominance, will not make the World Series
- More likely than not, an NL team has a better chance of being crowned World Series champion
- If I had to guess, the Cardinals and the Mariners will face each other in the World Series
And so, there goes my MLB 2022 retrospective. Here’s to a great season, and may the next one be just as good!
All statistics referred to in this article derive from baseball-reference.com
