Nobody was going to be beat Shohei Ohtani in the race for the NL MVP. The Los Angeles Dodgers’ star won his third MVP Award after receiving all 30 first-place votes from the Baseball Writer’s Association of America.
Cincinnati Reds’ star Elly De La Cruz finished eighth in the voting. De La Cruz was just behind Atlanta Braves pitcher and Cy Young Award-winner Chris Sale and slightly ahead of San Diego Padres’ rookie sensation Jackson Merrill. De La Cruz received 21 votes, ranging from fourth-place to 10th-place. Sadly, nine of the 30 voters completely left the Reds’ shortstop off their ballot.
And while voting is oftentimes subjective, some of the voters were obviously out to lunch when they sent their ballots in. One of those was the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Gordon Wittenmyer who placed Padres’ infielder Luis Arráez ahead of De La Cruz. Only one other voter even had Arráez on their ballot, and he ranked him 10th.
Reds beat writer’s absurd MVP vote diminished Elly De La Cruz
Wittenmyer is known to have bias against De La Cruz. Anyone who follows his work at the Cincinnati Enquirer or on social media knows that he was stumping for the Reds to start De La Cruz in the minor leagues last season in favor of non-roster invitees like Josh Harrison and Tony Kemp. How’d that work out?
But even if you put the obvious dislike for De La Cruz aside, the numbers themselves show exactly why Wittenmyer’s argument for Arráez over De La Cruz makes ZERO sense. While still a flawed statistic, Wins Above Replacement is arguably the best way to determine a player’s overall value. De La Cruz was worth 6.4 fWAR while Arráez was worth just 1.1 fWAR. Arráez had seven players on his own team who outpaced him in fWAR — including Merrill who wasn’t even on Wittenmyer’s ballot.
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Arráez is also a terrible defender. While Reds fans bemoaned the number of errors De La Cruz committed in 2024, the Reds’ shortstop was worth 15 outs above average (OAA) and ranked among the 98th percentile. Arráez ranked in the bottom of the league and was worth -13 OAA. There’s no world in which Arráez — who’s a very good player — is objectively better than De La Cruz.
C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic also had vote in this year’s NL MVP chase and ranked De La Cruz eighth on his ballot. Rosecrans omitted Atlanta Braves slugger Marcel Ozuna (who finished fourth) completely, and had Merrill listed ahead of De La Cruz. Otherwise, Rosecrans’ ballot fell pretty much in line with the overall vote.
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