(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
The AL MVP race is heating up in September but who will walk away with the trophy?
The 2020 MLB season getting reduced to 60 games has done little to make the AL MVP race any less captivating or impossible to decipher just days away from the award being officially given out. With several of the league’s best teams being led by some of the game’s best offensive performers, this race is bordering on a crapshoot.
The five players have risen above the rest, and they stand out as the best players in the American League at this juncture.
These five AL stars are the favorites for the MVP award
5
Nelson Cruz
DH Minnesota Twins
Cruz turned 40 just before the season started, but he might be in the middle of the best season of his career. While some members of Minnesota’s “Bomba Squad” have been more inconsistent than 2019, Cruz is mashing, hitting a robust .321 whole crushing 16 home runs. In 168 games with Minnesota over the course of the last two seasons, Cruz has an astounding 57 home runs, showing that he is actually getting better with age.
The Twins might be behind the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central, but Cruz in the heart of the lineup will have to be the driving force if Rocco Baldelli wants to make a run at the division. Voting for a DH on a team that likely isn’t going to catch Chicago in the Central might be a tough sell for some more old-school voters, but Cruz, who is leading the entire AL in OPS this season, might change some hearts and minds if he’s able to plant a few more meatballs halfway up the Target Field upper deck.