They are among the league leaders in virtually every category offensively. Truthfully, there’s not much to separate Harper and Soto. Granted, the season that Ohtani is having is unprecedented, but the argument that you can’t be the most valuable individual player in the league just because the team around you isn’t performing is a bad one. Shohei Ohtani is likely to win the American League MVP - and deserves to do so - despite the Los Angeles Angels being 74-82. Of course you can be on a terrible team and still provide tremendous value. None of that is meant to say that Soto has secured the MVP award, but simply that arguments made in Harper’s favor should be done so in good faith. 371/.544/.690 slash line in the second half of the season - that much more impressive. Of course the Nationals are terrible, and if anything, that makes what Soto has done since the All-Star Break - he has a.
#JUAN SOTO VS BRYCE HARPER STATS SERIES#
What’s transpired is that former World Series MVP Stephen Strasburg has made just five starts, Patrick Corbin has a 5.92 ERA and the team traded both Max Scherzer and Trea Turner to the Los Angeles Dodgers before the trade deadline. That said, why should Soto be penalized for what’s gone on around him? Even in the best-case scenario, the Nationals appeared to be fringe playoff contender at the beginning of the season.
Will Bryce Harper or Juan Soto will the NL MVP? (Cody Glenn, Tony Quinn/ Icon Sportswire) However, if the Phillies finish, let’s say, 84-78 but miss the playoffs, it would seem especially silly to factor team success into an individual award.Ĭertainly, there will still be voters that give an edge to Harper even if the Phillies miss the playoffs because his team was still in the race, as opposed to Soto’s Nationals who will enter Monday’s game in Colorado with a 64-92 record. From here, team success should play a minuscule factor in MVP voting, but it undoubtedly will, right or wrong, if Harper is the only one that advances to the postseason. That may work in his favor if the Phillies ultimately buck those odds, but it’s more likely than not right now that the team will miss the postseason.Īnd the discussion will really get interesting if Harper and Soto both end up missing the postseason. That said, with the Phillies slated to open up a crucial series in Atlanta Tuesday, Baseball Reference currently estimates that Harper’s squad has just a 10% chance to reach the playoffs. It is true that MVPs tend to be narrative-based awards, and if Harper leads the Phillies back to the postseason for the first time since 2011, there’s a good chance he’ll win the senior circuit’s top honor. What, if anything will separate Harper and Soto during the final week of the regular season? 987 OPS and 6.2 fWAR- Tim Kelly September 27, 2021 439 with a 1.367 OPS in September, putting him in a dead heat with Harper as voters get prepared to put their pencils down: 9 - when Harper had the second-best odds to win the award - Bet Online had Soto with 25/1 odds to win the National League MVP, behind Harper and four others.Īnd yet, Soto has hit. certainly opened the door as well.īut if you thought that Harper was a late entrant to the discussion, Soto has really emerged in the waning weeks of the season. What turned out to be season-ending injuries from Jacob deGrom and Ronald Acuña Jr. However, late-season surges from both Harper and Soto, among other things, have helped push them past Tatis.įor Harper, National League MVP buzz really began in early August, as he got off to a hot start to the second half and the Phillies surged. was probably still the favorite to win the award.
At the outset of the month, San Diego Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. More than two years later, Harper finds himself in a battle with his former teammate for the National League MVP as the 2021 season winds down. Even as her husband was introduced as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies in March of 2019, Kayla Harper couldn’t help but talk about how impressed she was with Juan Soto, in the few months that her husband, Bryce, was teammates with him in Washington.
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