Question of the week: Who is your first-half MVP?

[Brock Beauchamp]

I chose the top position players by fWAR, then the top starting pitchers also by fWAR. If there was an outstanding reliever in WPA, I also included them. Relievers don't get enough love, particularly non-closers.

With that said, who is your 2025 first-half MVP?

[igor67]

bWAR dramatically favors Turang over Frelick, and fWAR is only slightly in favor of Frelick. Frelick's raw offense was only slightly better than Turang's and that made it difficult for me to think about with my own subjective position adjustment. I think purely by the numbers offense and defense Turang has delivered a bit more, but for this first half I still went with Frelick on the basis of bigger moments of emotional impact. 

[Yaz19]

THE MIZ!  This teams whole attitude changed the day he took the mound for the first time.

[wiguy94]

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I chose the top position players by fWAR, then the top starting pitchers also by fWAR. If there was an outstanding reliever in WPA, I also included them. Relievers don't get enough love, particularly non-closers.

With that said, who is your 2025 first-half MVP?

Freddy. Don't know why Patrick is an option over Freddy.

[Brock Beauchamp]

3 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Freddy. Don't know why Patrick is an option over Freddy.

Higher fWAR. I was on the fence about Peralta, I will add him.

[RobertCrawley]

I chose Yeli. It's an odd choice, I know, but it seems that when Yeli is hitting the ball, the entire team follows his lead. It's probably just some kind of coincidence, but it also may be that his leadership is infectious.

[Playing Catch]

I picked Contreras. Firstly, it's the same as my belief that Raleigh should get the first-half AL MVP over the immaculate Judge. There's just something about having to do what they do as catchers that I find undeniable.

For a really young team, to see Contreras playing every day with a broken finger on his catching hand? Completely ignoring his numbers in favor of team goals.

I completely understand when people say to just shelve him to let the finger heal, I do. But inspiration is priceless.

[Jimbo]

Peralta