Bobby Witt Jr. and Francisco Lindor Are Chasing Giants in the MVP Race

Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani are the two best players in baseball. I don’t think that is a hot take considering what we have watched over the past five years.

Two former Rookie of the Years, Ohtani and Judge have three MVPs and five Silver Sluggers between them. One of them has already cleared 50 home runs this season (Judge), while the other (Ohtani) is barring down on becoming the first player in MLB history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a season.

The Dodgers and Yankees are baseball’s two most marketable teams, who could each finish atop their league and earn a bye to avoid the Wild Card round.

The best players on the best teams typically win the MVP award, and each superstar is the heavy favorite to take home the prize this year.

According to the BetMGM odds, Judge is a -2500 favorite to win the AL MVP, while Ohtani is a -700 favorite to win in the National League. This late in the season, the odds of an upset are very slim, but there is a top shortstop in each league who has thrust themselves into the conversation.

Francisco Lindor has led the New York Mets from dead in the water at the end of May, all the way to the forefront of the NL Wild Card race.

In the American League, Bobby Witt Jr. has taken a Royals team that lost 106 games in 2023, and has them on the doorstep of their first playoff berth since they won the World Series back in 2015.

Who knows, maybe the Cinderella Story for both of these shortstops ends in a rematch from when their teams met in the Fall Classic nine years ago.

Lindor and Witt have a lot in common when it comes to their case to win the MVP this year. They both play premium defense at the most important position on the diamond, and are clearly the best players on their teams. They also lead each league in Fangraphs’ Wins Above Replacement.

The more you dive into the respective MVP cases for Lindor and Witt, the more it becomes clear that making a case for one, supports the other hand-in-hand. So let’s dive into their joint case to pull off an MVP upset this year, and see who is in a better position to actually do it.

Does the Supporting Cast Matter?

When drawing the Venn diagram between Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, having superstar teammates overlaps pretty well for these two.

This year, Judge got the best teammate he has ever gotten the chance to play with, when the Yankees made the blockbuster trade to acquire Juan Soto. Soto has played at an MVP level in his own right this year, having already hit a career-high 38 home runs and having posted a career-best 7.5 fWAR.

Soto will likely finish third in the AL MVP race, but it does not appear that he will steal any first-place votes from Judge himself. The only question will be if voters knock Judge for having Soto’s help while rewarding Witt for having a far inferior lineup around him in Kansas City.

Witt’s running-mate this year has been Salvador Perez, who is a far cry from Juan Soto. Now Perez is having a strong age-34 season, with 26 home runs and 100 RBIs, but when a voter is assigning credit for the Royals success, Witt is going to receive the lionshare.

The same thing can be said for Francisco Lindor, who receives most of the credit for the Mets midseason turnaround as the clear leader of that clubhouse. Pete Alonso has hit 31 home runs, but it is Mark Vientos who has been the Mets second-best player by fWAR.

Vientos has put together the best season for a Mets’ third baseman in some time, mashing 24 home runs across just 95 games played. If he qualified, Vientos would lead all third basemen in slugging percentage and in wRC+.

Still, Vientos and Alonso don’t quite measure up to Shohei Ohtani’s supporting cast of Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman (amongst many others).

If Betts didn’t hit the IL this season, the NL MVP race would be even more convoluted, as voters would have had to decide between those two stars from the same team. When Betts went down it really swung the door wide open on Ohtani becoming the favorite.

Voters will have to decide if the team success of the Dodgers and Yankees should be discounted for Judge or Ohtani because of the guys around them, although their stats are so overwhelming that it likely won’t impact this race too much.

How Much Does Defense Matter?

The MVP has always been an offensive award first and foremost, so defense being a pillar in the case of Witt and Lindor does make their odds longer. If the MVP debate was strictly tied to these players’ composite value across hitting, baserunning, and fielding, Witt and Lindor would be the favorites.

Witt is currently leading all of baseball with his 9.6 fWAR, which is merely one decimal point better than Judge at 9.5. Because shortstop defense is valued at a premium by Fangraphs’ the fWAR at this position is always inflated.

Dansby Swanson’s .685 OPS and 3.4 fWAR this season are the perfect example of how much value a player can add from the shortstop position with the glove alone.

This is what makes the premium defenders at the position so valuable to their teams, because a great shortstop raises the floor of your entire roster, as a pitcher’s best friend.

Now when you take that defensive value and add a 30-30 offensive profile to it, all of a sudden you have a player who can win the MVP.

When you look at the Outs Above Average leaderboard, you will see Witt and Lindor atop the list for all shortstops at 18 OAA and 17 OAA respectively. Compare that defensive value to Judge, who has -6 OAA in center field, and Ohtani, who doesn’t play a position, and a case can start to be made for Lindor and/or Witt.

For this specific argument, the conversation between Lindor and Ohtani is far more nuanced because no DH has ever won the MVP. Ohtani is the favorite to become the first, but the case for Lindor is largely based on his immense value defensively in comparison to a guy who is only playing one way.

For Witt, the superior defense is less of a benchmark in his case, because Judge has played a position this year and a tough one out in center field. If Judge was in right field, his defensive metrics would be better, but he’ll take playing center if it means having Soto in right.

In some ways, Judge’s sacrifice of playing the more physically taxing position is a boost to his MVP case, not a detriment.

The betting odds have Lindor at +450 and Witt at +800, showing that there is more of an uphill battle for Witt because Judge’s MVP case is tougher to poke holes in.

Fighting History

This one is a double-edged sword when talking about the NL MVP race.

Shohei Ohtani would be the first player in MLB history to win the MVP solely based on his play as a designated hitter. To set a precedent, you have to do something no one has ever seen before, and finishing with 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases is certainly something we have never seen before.

Ohtani is pushing back on the narrative that a DH can’t win the MVP by posting these gaudy stats, while Lindor is trying to prove that those numbers don’t mean as much as what he has contributed to his team as a whole.

Meanwhile in the American League, Aaron Judge was once trending towards his second 60-home run season in the last three years.

Judge entered the final month of the season with 51 home runs, but has since gone through an early-September slump, hitting just .189 without a single home run so far. He is also just 13 points behind Witt in batting, with that being the only thing standing in his way of the Triple Crown.

Witt has held onto his lead in the average department, and will clearly need to win the batting title if he wants any chance at usurping Judge in the MVP race.

Who Has the Better Narrative to Win the Award

We only have two and half weeks left in the regular season, as teams gear up for their final five series.

The Yankees and Dodgers will both be playing come October, but still have a first-round bye to play for. The Mets and Royals are looking to punch their ticket, which gives Lindor and Witt the edge when it comes to narrative-building down the stretch.

The perfect example of this took place on Wednesday, when the Mets were getting no-hit into the ninth inning by Blue Jays rising star Bowden Francis.

Lindor led of the ninth inning, and fell behind in the count 0-2, before getting a fastball that was supposed to be up and out of the zone, but instead ended up right in his wheelhouse.

The Mets went on to rally to score five more runs in the ninth inning, coming from behind to beat the Blue Jays and win the series. When the Atlanta Braves lost to the Washington Nationals later on the same night, the Mets gained a game and sole possession of the third Wild Card spot.

Sitting in a more tenuous playoff position, Lindor may have more chances to deliver in big moments down the stretch, which can explain why there has been more of a narrative involving him than Witt. There is also the fact that Lindor plays in a big market and is getting way more media attention.

Witt and Lindor both deserve the MVP for the same reasons. They are the best players on teams who have been great surprises this season. We are looking at underdog stories, with guys who are easy to root for because of all the different ways they can impact the game.

Lindor and Witt are five-tool players who have gotten the most out of all those tools this season. They have led their teams and deserve all of the accolades and attention that they are receiving.

The fact that we can even call these races anything but unanimous for Judge and Ohtani is a testament to their greatness, but beating them is still a long shot.

Ultimately, these stories will come down to the final chapter, and who makes the biggest impression for voters before the story of the regular season ends. For Witt and Lindor, they are trying to slay giants of the game, both literally and figuratively.

As baseball fans, we couldn’t have asked for anything better to follow down the stretch.