Mike Trout is seemingly running away with the AL MVP award this year, but that doesn’t mean that Yankees infielder DJ LeMahieu isn’t making a strong case.
On January 11th, 2019, The Yankees signed DJ LeMahieu to a two-year, $24 mil deal. A lot of people were pissed about the signing, saying that they were going for the cheap players and didn’t want to win. I was one of the people who loved the signing. The signing put the Yankees out of the Manny Machado sweepstakes, and thank god we didn’t get Manny. DJ has been one of, if not, the best player on the team this year. He is doing stuff that we didn’t see all last year, hitting with RISP. Here are two reasons why DJ deserves to be the A.L. MVP.
The stats back it up.
DJ has been a top 10 player in baseball this year and the stats back it up. As of the time I’m writing this article, DJ is slashing .337/.385/.532 with a career-high in homers(19) and RBIs (81). He also has an OPS of .918 and has torn the cover off the baseball all year long. His average of .377 leads all of baseball. If DJ indeed wins the battle title this year, he will become one of the few players to win it in both leagues. DJ has also been the teams most clutch hitter with RISP this year. In those opportunities this year, DJ is slashing .410/.452/.610 with an OPS of 1.062. He also is second in all of baseball with 47 multihit games, trailing Brantley and Devers who both have 48. There are still 38 games left this season and D.J. can continue to extend his career highs in many categories.
Why he is the A.L. MVP
We all know Mike Trout is the best player in all of baseball, but MVP stands for “most valuable player” if you take DJ away from the Yankees who knows where we would be. He has been an everyday player and he just hits and hits, he also has been a great defender player 3 positions all year. If the writers do what they seem to have been doing recently and vote for players on playoff teams then I won’t be surprised if DJ wins A.L. MVP. He deserves it anyway.