It will be another five weeks or so before we learn the identity of the American League MVP. Sometime in early November, the voting will be revealed by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Ballots are due to be cast Sunday night.
The general consensus has the Red Sox' Mookie Betts as the odds-on-favorite, though strong cases can be made for teammate J.D. Martinez, Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor of the Indians, Alex Bregman of the Astros and Matt Chapman of the A's.
But we don't have to wait until November to know exactly how special a season Betts has had.
Through Friday's action, Betts had accumulated a 10.9 WAR from Baseball Reference and 10.2 from FanGraphs (the two organizations use a slightly different formula to compute their data, accounting for the slight discrepancy in the two totals).
Some perspective: the only Red Sox position players in modern history to post a higher WAR number was Carl Yastrzemski (12.5) in 1967, his Triple Crown season when Yastrzemski seemed to will his Impossible Dream teammates to a surprise American League pennant. Ted Williams also posted a 10.9 in 1946 when he slashed .342/.497/.667.
That covers a lot of ground for such a historic franchise. Consider the position players who have played here — from Jimmie Foxx to Jim Rice to Wade Boggs to Manny Ramirez to David Ortiz -- and it's a testament to the fabulous year Betts has enjoyed.
WAR takes into account every aspect of a player's game, from hitting to power to fielding to baserunning -- that's why someone like Ortiz, mostly a DH for much of his career, never registered very high on the leaderboards.
Consider: since that 1946 season enjoyed by Williams, here are the position players who have accumulated a bWAR (Baseball Reference) of better than 10.9 in the last 72 years: Barry Bonds (twice); Cal Ripken Jr.; Joe Morgan; Willie Mays (twice); Mickey Mantle (twice) and Stan Musial.
All but Bonds are already enshrined in Cooperstown and Bonds himself could get there someday.
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