Walk Like a Sabermetrician offers a very good take on who should win the upcoming Baseball Writers of America awards. I especially like his take on the Aaron Judge versus Shohei Ohtani discussion. He makes the point that early season MVP discussions lead to tribalism and mischaracterization:

On this last point, because the discussion starts so prematurely, camps form. This year, the Ohtani and Judge camps formed early. I do not really sit down and analyze the MVP race until the season is over, so I did not have a particularly informed opinion during the initial sparring, but from cursory looks at the statistics, I believe I would have thought Ohtani was more valuable than Judge until late in the summer. But when people vocally support one of the positions in June, it is much harder to reassess as more games are played because one has already attached themselves to a candidate. It appears to be a flip-flop to switch, and when Judge does prevail in the popular opinion at the end, it allows his backers to feel a sense of satisfaction and victory. But typically when the MVP question is posed in the middle of the season, it is not a projection question (i.e. “Which player do you think will be the MVP after the entire season has played out?”). It is more along the lines of “Which player has been the MVP so far?” So there should be absolutely no shame in changing one’s answer to that question as more data emerges. And having backed Judge in June should not give one any sense of satisfaction when Judge does wind up as the MVP in the end.

WalkSaber.substack.com

I have become less interested in Award discussions over the years because I now trust the writers to make good choices. Again, I think the NL MVP race is going to be close; in my mind Paul Goldschmidt is not as clear cut a choice as Judge. I’m looking forward to the actual vote distribution on that one.