Yelich has definitely surpassed Baez. Great SLG does not compensate for a bad OBP, and all the talk about his versatility is overplayed. Yelich can move over to a premium defensive position and be a mediocre defender there just like Baez. Baez playing great 2B defense is no better than Yelich's LF defense. It does not translate to CF, but Baez's 2B defense doesn't really translate to SS very impressively either. I still think Cain is my leader, but I can't stick to my guns much longer at this rate. You don't have to be a slugger to be MVP if you're the best leadoff man in baseball. His OBP has basically been .400 all year and he plays premium CF defense. A lot of teams are just hoping for bonus offense if they have a premiere defender at CF, SS, or C, and the Brewers are getting a .400 OBP. It's ludicrously valuable. For all the talk of Yelich being hot at the right time, that's just narrative - not value. I think Cain's consistency has probably been more valuable. He has basically been the NL leader in WAR for position players literally since day 1 by some measures. All well said. Thing is we know how MVP voting works. The counting stats matter. We can say how it should be but that's just not reality. 310/400 with 11 HRs and 41 RBIs just isn't going to win MVP. Yelich has also scored 20 more Rs than Yelich. Also, Yelich's OBP is only 14 below Cain's right now but Cain is 130 behind in OPS. That difference in slugging is huge. Also, WAR and defensive metrics are still so unknown/flawed/inexact or whatever you want to call it that voters and even people like us have to hesitate to put tooo much weight into those things. And again it's not like yelich is some kind of liability on D to create a massive gap there as it would be if Yelich's stats were being gained at 1B or DH. Sure is nice to have two guys legit in the conversation though.