A vast majority of the sports writers I've read over the last 4 weeks were picking Altuve or Correa, I read very little about Judge and this was before the All-Star break was over. He's getting a ton of acknowledgement, but so was Correa and that wouldn't have helped his individual performance in the award tally. Now that Correa is sidelined for most of the rest of the season Altuve is in the driver's seat, and I don't think it's as close as you guys think it is, I say he runs away with the award. Springer comes in 4th.
Sadly I think Jose is going to have to do something insane like hit .400 for the season to get it given the media.
"The Media" ****ing loves Altuve. They talk about him all the time, he's the scrappy little guy who overcame the odds that everybody is amazed by and everyone roots for. He's Rudy, but actually great and real.
Altuve had MVP talk on both Around the Horn and PTI. Of course Wilbon said he was probably the 4th best player on his own team. Correa, Springer, Marwin, Altuve. On a segment where the question was who is more underrated the Astros or Altuve. Lol. He even threw Reddick in, though I'm not sure where he was going there. Don't be an idiot Mike. People love Altuve but he's also continually underrated. You can tell when non baseball people talk about him, they have no idea how good he's been for years now. He has a legit MVP shot but he's going to need to put significant distance between him and Judge to do it. If it's close the media darling will easily win.
This has nothing to do with Altuve, but Wilbon took the cue from his bosses and went from a really sharp journalist/columnist to just another shouting-head in the past couple of years. He used to be enjoyable, his devolution to SAS-style has been disappointing.
There are the baseball gurus who will always take Altuve, but the general media will always side with Judge for the simple reason he is box office. eye test. And honestly, for the good of the game, it's better that Judge wins. It's a marketing decision. Altuve's only shot may be this year as they have another trophy ready for Judge. Correa though, could be as box office as Judge down the road.
Altuve would also be jacking 50 hr's a season if he was the amount of roids Bonds took during those seasons.
OPS, WAR, defense, comparing performance against all-time 2B: these are all the good reasons that Altuve deserves the MVP.
Alutve is in my opinion the best player on the team, but is the best player always the most valuable? Who has been more valuable this season Altuve or Marwin?
My MLB app sent me 3 separate notifications all outlining different aspects of Altuve's amazing season so far. They are getting the word out there that Altuve is must-watch. The media absolutely loves Altuve, and rightfully so.
This narrative simply doesn't exist. The Astros and Jose Altuve have gotten/are getting PLENTY of attention. They're not the Cubs and Altuve doesn't play for the Yankees - those will ALWAYS be factors, in terms of visibility - more casual fans care about the Cubs and Yankees than the Astros. It's literally been that way for DECADES and isn't changing any time soon. But Altuve finished 3rd in MVP voting last year (which is exactly where he should have finished; and it was his September collapse - not media bias - that cost him a possible higher finish) and he'll likely be a frontrunner this year. Believe me, baseball people would LOVE to give the award to - and then write about - a diminutive player who scrapes and hustles. They've been writing THAT story for a century.
They would love to give it to that type of player. If Jose Altuve did this in 2015, he'd have won the MVP. Aaron Judge is different though, as he has his own narrative that the media likes. He's huge, he's made the Yankees relevant again. Nobody saw this coming. Altuve lacks that surprise, having been around for years, and the Astros having higher expectations coming into the season (even though both are exceeding them). Who knows how the rest of the season goes, but both are deserving of MVP right now. Just imagine how crazy it would be if Correa & Trout hadn't got hurt.
Correa gets dinged amazingly enough because people expect this of him. Also, we kinda sense that this is still the tip of his iceberg. Don't worry about Carlos, he's not even in his prime yet!
I think the media is going to be all over the "David vs Goliath" facet to this race. I'm not worried about the media being the reason Altuve may not win.
Exactly. There's ONE sports media outlet that hammers the Yankee angle relentlessly. It happens to be the most widely-viewed sports media outlet... But baseball writers?... They are, generally speaking, fairly objective and there's little-to-no evidence of any NY bias. @Buck Turgidson brought up Jeter's MVPs (0, btw); you can also look at the HoF voting, which has almost been decidedly anti-Yankee, considering A LOT of beloved Yankees barely got a cup of coffee on the ballot (Mattingly, Bernie, Posada).
I think blaming media is always a copout and hate when people do it, but, having SportsCenter on this morning (no idea why, i don't watch this) they were going through their MLB recaps. Start off with Dodgers and then "onto the next hottest team in the league, the Cubs" Ok, I can understand that, they've played great out of the break. Then they cover current streaks, in regards to Altuve "He's really feasting on bad fielding right now, and some bad pitching" That's literally their coverage of Altuve, that a .365 hitter with a FORTY point lead in the batting race, is feasting on bad fielding. I'm shocked that these incompetent jokes of men have jobs, well paying jobs. If I knew I was embarrassing myself on the level that a lot of these ESPN employees are, I'd have enough pride as a man, to not show my face on TV again. Is it in their contracts that they are not allowed to be real men? Are they castrated and cucked before being allowed to sign their contract?