Aaron Decide vs. Shohei Ohtani: American League MVP comes all the way down to tremendous slugger vs. two-way phenom

5 years after his historic rookie season, Aaron Decide finds himself again within the coronary heart of the American League MVP voting. The 30-year-old super-slugger will discover out if he picks up his first MVP award when the outcomes are unveiled Thursday evening.

Decide broke the AL single-season house run document final season hitting 62 homers whereas slashing .311/.425/.686 and driving in 131 runs. The appropriate fielder is the clear-cut favourite to win his first MVP award after main the league in most offensive classes.

Nonetheless, Angels’ two-way star Shohei Ohtani figures to make an intriguing case to take house his second consecutive MVP award. The 28-year-old cranked 34 homers and posted a slash line of .273/.356/.519. Ohtani additionally recorded a 2.33 ERA and 219 strikeouts in 28 begins this season. Yordan Alvarez of the Astros is the third finalist for the award however is taken into account a protracted shot.

Regardless of Ohtani’s historic season, Decide’s behemoth — throughout his contract season — supplied extra worth in quite a lot of methods. The slugger turned in a yr of offensive efficiency that has by no means been seen in AL historical past whereas carrying a 99-win workforce into the postseason within the greatest market within the recreation.

Ohtani’s glowing statistics as a two-way unicorn had little influence whereas doing it for the 73-win Angels who didn’t play a significant recreation after Could. Decide’s 11.4 fWAR additionally beats out Ohtani’s 9.5 — though there are questions on precisely how the pitching worth is measured.

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Decide has acquired MVP votes in three of his six full seasons. He completed second in 2017 — the yr of Houston’s sign-stealing scandal — to Astros’ star Jose Altuve, twelfth in 2019 and fourth in 2021. The present free agent might add his first MVP award to his resume which is already figured to earn some huge cash. Decide turned down a seven-year, $213.5 million supply from the Yankees previous to the beginning of final season.

The award will likely be introduced Thursday evening at 6 p.m. ET on MLB Community.