At the midway point of the baseball season already a few things are becoming abundantly clear: The Yankees, even with their ace-less, problematic starting rotation, are going to run away with the American League East because of their overwhelming depth; the dysfunctional Mets are going to continue on one of the ugliest seasons (even for them) in recent memory, and, come November, there is going to be yet another spirited AL MVP debate between Mike Trout, the unquestioned best player in the game, and a rival player who has unquestionably been more valuable to his team _ in this case DJ LeMahieu.
In six of his seven seasons, Trout, the darling for the WAR-mongers, has finished first or second in the Most Valuable Player voting, winning it twice in 2014 and 2016 while four times leading the majors in WAR. During that same period his team, the Los Angeles Angels, had four losing seasons, six seasons in which they finished third or worse in the AL West and only one division title. It is no different this year as the Angels are wallowing under .500, in fifth place and going nowhere, despite another standout season by Trout, who is leading the AL in WAR and third in the majors in OPS. It is kind of like the old Branch Rickey line to his star slugger Ralph Kiner with the perennial cellar-dwelling Pirates in the early 1950s when the two were engaged in a contract dispute. At one point, the exasperated Rickey said to Kiner: "We finished last with you, we can just as soon finish last without you" _ and not long after he traded him to the Cubs.
What I'm getting at here is the Angels could just as well be in fifth place without Trout right now, but there is no way the Yankees would be in first place without LeMahieu, who, with his hitting and versatility, has defined what an MVP is. For much of the first half of the season, the story of the Yankees was the mind-boggling slew of injuries they had to endure, yet through them all, from April 21 until taking the AL East lead for an extended period on May 19, they were never more than 2 { games out of first place. The player most responsible for that was LeMahieu, who in Aaron Boone's forced patchwork job, filled in admirably at second, third and first. But besides leading the league in batting, it is in the "hidden" offensive stats where LeMahieu's value to the Yankees has been most evident. Going into the weekend, his 29 two-out RBIs were the most in the majors (Trout's 20 ranked 26th according to the Elias Bureau). LeMahieu's 33 multi-hit games were tied for second in the majors and in games in which he had two or more hits the Yankees were 21-12. Lastly, and probably most importantly, LeMahieu's .478 average with runners in scoring position leads the majors. (By contrast, Trout's .319 was 49th.) At the midway point, the AL MVP would appear to be a no contest. No other player has impacted his team more than LeMahieu.
