Nationals’ Harper and Blue Jays’ Donaldson win MLB’s MVP awards

While Toronto fans got their wish Thursday night as the Blue Jays third baseman was named the American League MVP, Donaldson said he never let the crowd noise affect his play.

In the National League, the best player – not the best player from a playoff team – scored a victory for WAR as Bryce Harper and his MLB-best 9.5 score as computed by fangraphs.com collected all 30 first-place votes despite the Nationals falling flat on their face as a team.

Outfielder Lorenzo Cain of the Kansas City Royals was third with 20 third-place votes. He had 122 runs, 184 hits, 41 doubles, two triples, 41 home runs, 123 RBIs, six stolen bases, 352 total bases, 10 sacrifice flies, a. 371 on-base average and a. 568 slugging percentage.

Harper is the youngest unanimous NL MVP victor since Johnny Bench in 1970 and the youngest MVP since Cal Ripken, Jr.in 1983.

Donaldson became the first Blue Jays player to win the award since George Bell won the award in 1987.

Harper was a unanimous selection, easily beating the other two finalists, first basemen Paul Goldschmidt of the Diamondbacks and Joey Votto of the Reds.

Mike Trout should be a three-time MVP by now, the most ardent of modern stat worshippers cried through the 2015 season.

“To be on the field, that’s the main goal”, Harper said.

The youngest player in Major League Baseball history to club 42 home runs and walk 124 times in a season (youngest since Babe Ruth, who hit 54 home runs and 150 walks in 1920 at age 25), Harper is also just the second player since 2000 to accumulate at least 42 homers, 124 walks, and 118 runs in a season, joining Barry Bonds (2001 – MVP, 2004 – MVP).

This year, Harper played 153 games, avoided the disabled list and kept climbing the statistic charts. The 23-year old who grew up playing baseball against this years NL Rookie of the Year, Kris Bryant, also claimed a Silver Slugger and the Hank Aaron award to wrap of his fine season.

Despite the Nationals’ underachievement team this year, Harper’s season was simply so much better than anyone else in the league that it was impossible to ignore.

Trout and Donaldson finished with very similar numbers this year. He is the third-youngest player since 1900 to lead the majors in OBP and slugging, trailing only Ty Cobb (1909) and Stan Musial (1941), according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

All of this has something to do with it, but there’s also this overarching feeling from the media – especially the voting class – that Mike Trout, having put up four full seasons of 173 OPS+ baseball, simply isn’t surprising them anymore. Alongside Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, Donaldson led an offense that produced the most runs in the majors since 2009.

Voters left no doubt about the winners of the National and American League Most Valuable Player awards.