Assuming 2014 (Kershaw) doesn't apply, I believe the answer is 1973. Pete Rose won the MVP that year with only 64 RBIs. The next lowest since that time was Gibson in '88 with 76 RBIs. Edit: I missed Barry Larkin in 1995 with 66 RBIs
Yeah lack of RBI isn't a disqualification for MVP Right now only 1 everyday player in the NL has a better WAR than Corey and it's Kris Bryant who doesn't even have a steady/everyday position. The guy's played 6 different positions this year, logging big innings in 3 of them. Corey's at the most valuable spot in the field everyday and he's the 2nd best glove at the position behind Crawford He's arguably the MVP of the league..already
MVP voters like offense before anything else. If voting was right now, Bryant, Rizzo, and Daniel Murphy all easily get more votes than Seager. There's a good chance Arenado, Wilson Ramos, and (maybe) Trevor Story get more votes too. But Seager is in the conversation at that level. A lot of baseball left to play. I suppose Seager has an outside shot, but it's going to take more than what he's done so far. MVPs are tough to win.
They do like offense, however, teammates also hurt one another in the MVP race sometimes. It sort of factored into Larkin's MVP, Bichette had huge offensive numbers that year, but Walker was nipping at him, ditto for Piazza/Karros, so you never know with Rizzo/Bryant, Arenado/Story, and Murphy/Ramos. But Reggie Sanders had better offensive numbers than Barry Larkin and lost out because of Larkin's defense at a demanding position. And so I was taking into account the everyday defensive demands of the SS position with Corey, surely CK is going to take some of the vote from him as well. Whether or not Corey gets the actual NL MVP award is almost another thing entirely here, though. We've seen Trout get fucked over a couple times by voters, seen Kemp fucked over by voters, seen CK fucked over for the Cy multiple times by voters, etc. All in all, the point is that Corey should be right smack in the middle of MVP picture as a rookie and Turner is a ways behind due to his extra slow start to the season and just not having the overall offensive numbers that Corey has. Corey is the best everyday player on the team.
Absolutely was...now, just as long as we don't defecate in the crib against the "easy schedule, sub .500 teams " we are playing next.
Seager has been a top-10 player in baseball and probably in the top-3 most valuable NL players this year. The voters suck though so he probably won't get as much recognition as he deserves.
I was very worried when I saw we played at Washington and St Louis to start the 2nd half. Thought we might lose a lot of ground on the Giants and be in a huge hole, yet we sit 3 games back. Love it. But as BZ has said, nothing is certain vs these lesser caliber teams as we saw in our first series. Hoping the Dodgers beat up on them like they should
Tampa(2), Arizona(3), At Col(3), Bos(3), Philly(3), Pitt(3). Home heavy stretch coming up with four mediocre teams and two good teams that we get at home. SF: Cincy(3), Wash(3), At Philly(3), @Wash(3), @Miami(3), Baltimore(3). 2 mediocre opponents and four good teams for the Giants coming up....definitely a tougher stretch than us.
The worse team in MLB can look like the '27 Yankees if a completely overworked bp has to pitch night after night from the 5/6 th inning on, incessantly. Relentlessly. And although the last two nights, the O has been badass, as we know, that same group can go one for 80 or some shit with RISP just like they did 3 games ago. C'mon...
agree he should be in the conversation but for a rookie to win the mvp they'd have to dominate still early and a lot can happen but i'd say murphy is ahead of him right now
who knows what the voters will do? but most everything i've heard (espn, mlb network, et al) seems to favor corey that said, i really don't care about individual awards all that much last year when they gave the cy to arrieta over zack i was like