Monday, August 31

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Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Today’s edition is brought to you by Anthony Castrovince.

For those of us who lived through the knock-down-drag-out American League MVP debates about Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout in 2012 and ’13, it’s stunning to see how much the voting for the award has evolved in a relatively short time.

Back then, it was Trout’s all-around excellence pitted against Miggy’s offensive onslaught. The results weren’t close. Cabrera clobbered Trout in the MVP votes each of those years, despite Trout’s clear edge in Wins Above Replacement.

These days, we put the WAR in aWARd in a substantial way. Only five of the last 20 MVPs between the AL and NL were not the end-of-year leaders in their league in either fWAR (FanGraphs model) or bWAR (the Baseball-Reference version), and two of those five were in that strange COVID season of 2020 (ironically, Trout in 2019 was one of the rare non-WAR leaders to win it in this timeframe):

2019: Mike Trout (AL MVP)

2020: José Abreu (AL MVP), Freddie Freeman (NL MVP)

2021: Bryce Harper (NL MVP)

2022: Paul Goldschmidt (NL MVP)

We bring all this up because the AL WAR leaderboards are threatening to challenge the way the voting has gone in this era. Entering tonight, they look like this (we’re excluding pitchers here, taking into account that a non-Shohei Ohtani pitcher has not won an MVP since 2014 and they have not received much voting support in recent years):

bWAR

Bobby Witt Jr., KC: 6.3

Kevin McGonigle, DET: 6.1

Yordan Alvarez, HOU: 5.8

Ceddane Rafaela, BOS: 5.6

Wilyer Abreu, BOS: 5.6

Junior Caminero, TB: 4.8

Miguel Vargas, CWS: 4.5

Willson Contreras, BOS: 4.4

Dillon Dingler, DET: 4.4

Steven Kwan, CLE: 4.4

fWAR

Witt, 6.4

Alvarez, 5.8

Dingler, 5.0

McGonigle, 4.6

Ezequiel Duran, 4.4

Vargas, 4.4

Caminero, 4.3

Rafaela, 4.0

Contreras, 4.0

Pete Alonso, BAL: 4.0

As you can see, we’ve got some disagreements between the two lists, but both models agree that Witt has provided more value than any other AL player. The same Witt who ranked third in our latest poll of 37 MLB.com experts. 

It’s Alvarez, despite being third in bWAR and second in fWAR, who ranked first in our poll and is the favorite on many of the oddsmaker sites. It’s Caminero, who is out of the top five on both lists, ranking second in our poll and on many of those same sites.

As Alvarez continues his bid for the Triple Crown in a series against the first-place White Sox that begins tonight (8:10 p.m. ET on MLB.TV), you could say he’s also attempting to turn back time to 2012-13. He’s in the lumbering slugger vein a la Miggy, but his offensive exploits are so extreme (1.039 OPS, 191 OPS+) that they might render the WAR trend moot. Caminero is similarly making such an offensive dent for the first-place Rays (.908 OPS, 150 OPS+) that he, too, appears to have way more MVP traction than Witt, who is fantastic at every facet of the game but not having an outlandish offensive season (.812 OPS, 130 OPS+).  

WAR isn’t going away, obviously. But it might not be the decisive factor in this particular ballot the way it has been in many recent votes. Miguel Cabrera probably approves. 

 

GAMES OF THE NIGHT

Brewers at Cubs (7:40 p.m. ET, MLB.TV) 

The MLB-best Brewers make their final trip to Wrigley Field this season with a comfortable eight-game cushion over the Cubs in the NL Central. But with NL MVP frontrunner Pete Crow-Armstrong in the midst of another ridiculous power surge and new ace Clay Holmes on the hill, the Cubs hope to begin chipping away at that deficit over this four-game set.  

A’s at Rangers (8:05 p.m. ET, MLB.TV)

Jacob deGrom takes the mound coming off a shockingly uncharacteristic start his last time out, when he allowed eight runs against the White Sox, walking five batters and striking out only two. It was the most runs he’s allowed since 2017, but it came on the heels of him reaching the 2,000-strikeout milestonewith a vintage 10-K, one-hit performance. So which version will we get tonight against a depleted A’s lineup? With the 38-year-old deGrom, who will have a fascinating Hall of Fame case when all is said and done, it’s never unreasonable to expect greatness.

Phillies at D-backs (9:40 p.m. ET, MLB.TV)

These two teams occupy the second and third NL Wild Card spots, and the Phillies could secure the head-to-head tiebreaker by winning this series. They won’t be thrilled to say goodbye to August, with a 20-7 record in the month that is the best in baseball. Adding intrigue to this matchup will be the return of Ketel Marte, who is expected to rejoin the active roster and hopefully put an end to a saga the D-backs would prefer to put in the rearview mirror as they continue their playoff push.   

STYLE GUIDE

When big leaguers show up to the park on any given day, they pretty much know what jersey they’ll be putting on. Home or away, maybe throw in a City Connect every now and then, there isn’t all that much variation. But every once in a while, when a Major Leaguer hits the Minors for a rehab assignment, they get thrown for a loop. And it’s a joy to see every time.

Take for example Brewers reliever Abner Uribe, who had the unique pleasure of donning a Lederhosen uniform with Brats scrawled across his chest in giant letters. He still cut an imposing figure on the mound even though he looked more ready for Oktoberfest than October, when the postseason-bound Brewers hope their star reliever — who was activated this afternoon — can be a factor again. 

Frankly, we need to see more Brats big leaguers in the wurst way. 

BEST OF THE WEEKEND

• Home run history was made over the weekend by … Austin Wells? The Yankees catcher might not have been an obvious candidate to enter the slugging record books, but that’s exactly what he did when he became the first player in MLB history to enter as a pinch-hitter and hit multiple home runs in a single inning.

• The legend Max Scherzer continued his ascent up the strikeout leaderboard, passing Gaylord Perry for ninth all-time with 3,535. The 42-year-old turned back the clock with a season-high 10 K’s, doing so without getting stung by hard contact or by the bee that made a home on the back of his jersey. 

• Sal Stewart just keeps on slugging, hitting his 30th homer of the season over the weekend to join Hall of Famer Frank Robinson as the only Reds rookies to reach that mark. He may well win NL Rookie of the Year, just as Robinson did, though there is some suddenly stiff competition for the hardware.  

250 FOR 250: ICONIC RECORDS

You’ll know these numbers when you see them. They’re the records that define the game. 

We’re down to the final week of our 250 for 250 series, and we’re kicking it off with the top 10 MLB records. 

In a sport with a 150-year history, these marks have stood the test of time:

See the full top 10 records list >> 

 

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