Who has the edge in the NL MVP race?

In July, I went on the record and made a case for Paul Goldschmidt to win the National League MVP award at +115 odds. Today, Goldschmidt is the odds-on favorite at -140 over at BetMGM.

Now, I’m not going to tell anyone to run to the window to back Goldschmidt at the current price.

What I plan to do is to take a look at the contenders and assess how they’ve fared thus far as we head into the final eight weeks of the season.

Traditionally, baseball pundits often view the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) metric as invaluable when comparing players. Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt leads all National League hitters with an offensive WAR value of 5.6.

That bodes well for Goldschmidt because the Cardinals are one of the hottest teams in baseball with seven straight wins. They recently pulled off a three-game sweep over a Yankees team that has the best winning percentage in the American League.

Overall, Goldschmidt leads all of baseball with a .332 batting average. He’s also tied fourth in the National League in home runs (26) and second in RBIs (84).

Goldschmidt has a great chance to pad those numbers as, according to tankathon.com, the Cardinals have the second-softest remaining schedule in the majors.

Atlanta’s Austin Riley has the second-highest WAR (4.8) in the National League. Riley is ninth in batting average (.296), tied for second in home runs (29), and ninth in RBIs (69).

However, I’m a bit surprised that Riley has the second shortest odds at +550 despite ranking ninth in two key categories—batting average and RBIs.

Moreover, while the Cardinals now lead their division, the Braves took a significant step back after losing four out of five games in a critical series against the Mets.

Atlanta is now 6.5 games out of first place in the NL East.

I’d have to think that voters could look to use division winners as a tie-breaker if this award race gets even closer.

Of the top seven players with the shortest MVP odds, Riley is the only one on a team not currently in first place in their division.

The Braves face an uphill challenge to win the division as they have the 13th softest remaining schedule, while the Mets have an even softer slate as their schedule is ranked seventh overall.

One player who is probably more deserving of MVP votes is the New York Mets’ Pete Alonso. Alonso is 15th in batting average (.283), tied for second in home runs (29), and first in RBIs (95).

Yet despite those prodigious numbers, Alonso’s WAR value is only 3.4, which could explain why he has the fourth-shortest odds at +1200.

The Mets slugger had at least one hit in all five games against the Braves and finished 8-for-19 with one home run and seven RBIs.

I’m not going to claim to know everything about how WAR is calculated. According to Yahoo Sports, Baseball-Reference founder Sean Forman even likened it to calculating a country’s GDP.

The WAR metric was in the news a ton this offseason as owners and players considered how to allocate millions of dollars in bonus money for MLB’s youngest players.

However, while the WAR metric receives plenty of plaudits for its comprehensiveness, it might need some revamping based on where it has Alonso in its rankings.

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