Dodgers' Cody Bellinger Not Even Among Finalists in Players' Vote for MLB Player of the Year
By Sean Facey
Well here's a bit of a twist.
The finalists for this year's players' vote for MLB Player of the Year were released on Friday, and to the surprise of many, Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Cody Bellinger wasn't among them. Instead, the three candidates were Mike Trout, Christian Yelich and Anthony Rendon.
Finalists in player vote for MLB player of the year:
— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) October 18, 2019
Mike Trout, Christian Yelich, Anthony Rendon.
Of course, this speaks more for the depth of the amazing talent in the league this year rather than Bellinger's personal performance, but it doesn't make it any less surprising. He's long been considered the front-runner for the NL MVP award alongside Yelich and Rendon.
He finished the year with an eye-popping 1.035 OPS along with 47 home runs and 115 runs batted in. His 7.8 fWAR was tied with Yelich for the fourth-best mark among all qualified batters.
Position players who increased their fWAR most from 2018 to 2019:
— Max’s Sporting Studio (@MaxSportsStudio) October 18, 2019
+5.0 Rafael Devers
+4.5 Ketel Marte
+4.1 Cody Bellinger
+3.9 Trey Mancini
+3.7 Marcus Semien
+3.6 George Springer
+3.6 Yoan Moncada
+3.3 DJ LeMahieu
+2.9 James McCann
+2.8 Scott Kingery
Though Bellinger and Yelich have been pretty much neck-and-neck on most statistical levels in 2019, the one thing the Dodger has on his Milwaukee counterpart is games played. Bellinger appeared in 156 games for the Dodgers whereas Yelich, who went down with a season-ending injury in September, played in just 130.
It's unfortunate that one of the best players in all of baseball isn't even going to get recognized in the players' vote, but at least it won't affect his standing among the BBWAA.