Colorado Rockies foes: 2020 American League awards predictions

Most Valuable Player Predictions

1st place: Mike Trout, OF – Los Angeles

2nd place: Francisco Lindor, SS – Cleveland; 3rd place: Alex Bregman, 3B – Houston

More from Rox Pile

• A Colorado Rockies Thanksgiving
• Colorado Rockies: What if Todd Helton had played football instead?
• Colorado Rockies: Charlie Blackmon out for the season
• Colorado Rockies: Injuries shift look of roster ahead of Dodgers series
• Colorado Rockies: Has Sean Bouchard earned a second look in 2023?

Some awards are so open that the predictions can be as crazy as you want them to be, and then there are the awards that there is only one sensible choice. The American League MVP is one of the sensible awards. As long as Mike Trout is healthy, he will always be the front runner for the award, and other predictions are just different for contrarian’s sake.

All Houston Astros players are going to get dinged in the awards voting for their role in the sign-stealing scandal that dominated the offseason. That much we know. But at what point will the results prove too great for the voters to ignore? It will be a new case study with Justin Verlander in the Cy Young race and Alex Bregman in the MVP voting.

The 2019 runner-up will likely continue his rise as an elite talent in the game. If he can maintain his gains in the power department, and reach double-digits in stolen bases for an Astros team expected to win the division title, he will still garner enough votes to crack the top three.

At least I could have a little creativity with the runners-up in this award. Francisco Lindor is entering his sixth season in the majors and looks to build on a successful first five years. He has won two gold gloves, two silver sluggers, appeared in the All-Star game in every full season he has played and has finished top-10 in the MVP voting three times.

2020 is the year that he cracks the top-three. There are whispers that Lindor may move out of the leadoff spot for the Indians this season, and that would further his MVP case with more RBI opportunities. The voters love themselves some counting numbers. His blend of power and speed, plus the Indians playoff chase, will have him at the forefront of voter’s minds at the end of the regular season.

Michael Nelson Trout is the best baseball player on the planet right now. In my opinion, the only things preventing him from picking up his fourth MVP award at the end of the 2020 season are voter fatigue and if the Angels don’t reach the postseason yet again. One of my season-long predictions is that the Angels will make the playoffs, so now it comes down to the voters and whether they get fed up with voting for the same incredible talent year after year.

Trout has been nothing short of phenomenal his entire career. Since his first full season in 2012, the $400 million man has averaged 124 runs, 40 home runs, 104 RBI, 28 steals, with a .308/.422/.587 slash line per 162 games. Still not impressed?

He’s finished in the top-four of MVP voting in eight straight seasons and has seven Silver Slugger titles to go with his three MVP awards. The only thing missing is some postseason success, and if that happens in 2020, Trout will likely stroll to another accolade.