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As I’m sure you know by now it’s never too early for talk about who’s going to win the year end awards in Major League Baseball. Of course, things will probably change a million times before the awards are actually handed out. Well except for American League MVP as they’ll give that to Shohei Ohtani no matter what kind of numbers anyone else puts up.

What actually got me thinking about this is they started talking about candidates for the National League MVP and somehow, they left out Luis Arraez of the Miami Marlins. Then they just happened to mention that Arraez doesn’t rate very well when it comes to sabermetrics and analytics. According to sabermetrics and analytics Arraez doesn’t rank very highly in hard hit rate and apparently that eliminates you from MVP consideration in some people’s eyes. Oddly another player who didn’t rank very high in hard hit rate was Tony Gwynn and how did his career turnout?

In case you’re wondering Arraez is currently leading the National League in batting average at .401 and On Base Percentage at .451. He’s also 3rd in Wins Above Replacement at 2.9, he’s also sitting in 3rd for Offensive War at 2.5.

It seems to be the lack of power that is what’s holding Arraez back from being a serious MVP candidate. Arraez only has 1 home run this season in 57 games, but in those 57 games he’s only struck out 11 times while walking 19 times. Now that strikeouts are no longer considered a negative there are very few players that play full time that actually walk more than they strikeout.

Now don’t get me wrong here I’m not saying that Arraez should be the National League MVP just that he should get consideration for the award. Remember no one has hit .400 in a season since Ted Williams did it in 1941.

I’d have to think that right now the National League MVP award would come down to a current Atlanta Brave and a former Atlanta Brave as Ronald Acuna Jr. and Freddie Freeman have put up some quality numbers so far this season.

Let me know what you think of the season Arraez has had so far and if you think that he should at least get some consideration for the National League MVP award. I’d also like to know who your frontrunner for that award is right now.

I have to wonder if I jinxed Alec Manoah when I picked him to win the American League Cy Young award before the season started. I sure looks as though I did.

In starts for the Toronto Blue Jays this season Manoah was 1-7 with an ERA of 6.36. In his last start on Monday against the Houston Astros Manoah lasted just 1/3rd of an inning. He gave up 6 runs on 7 hits one of which was a home run and walked a batter.

After that start the Blue Jays optioned Manoah to the minors, but not to Triple-A like you might think they would’ve. Manoah was sent to the Blue Jays Florida Complex League.

The Florida Complex League is a rookie level minor league that play at the minor league spring training complexes of their parent MLB clubs and are owned by those parent clubs. Admission is not charged, and no concessions are operated at the teams’ games.

So, Manoah has basically been sent back to where his career began as he looks to more or less reset and see if he can regain that form that allowed him to place 3rd in the A.L. Cy. Young voting last season.

I guess will have to see how he does in the FCL, but I think the other players I selected to win awards before the season started might have to be concerned.

Don’t forget to look me up on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.