Bellinger and Trout win MVP
A pair of California outfielders are your 2019 Most Valuable Players; Cody Bellinger of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels received 19 and 17 first-place votes respectively.
This isn’t the first time that players from Los Angeles have taken home both awards; it happened just five years ago in fact. In 2014 Clayton Kershaw and Trout became the first players to win the award from these franchises in the same season. Let’s read about the 2019 Most Valuable Players.
Cody Bellinger
This is Bellinger’s first MVP of his young career. At just 24 years young, the outfielder 19 first-place votes and 10 second-place votes. The reigning MVP Christian Yelich got 10 first-place votes coming in second-place.
Bellinger was helped by the injury to Yelich, causing him to miss the end of the season. The Dodger hit .305/.406/.629 while adding a cool 47 homers and 115 RBI en route to winning the award.
Just three years into his career, Bellinger has already unanimously won the National League Rookie of the Year in 2017, and now has an MVP trophy to add to the case. In his 2017 campaign, his numbers didn’t quite compare to this season, but he finished ninth in MVP voting his rookie season.
Mike Trout
Trout has now been named the American League MVP three times at the age of 28 years old. The Angel received 17 first-place votes and 13 second-place votes from the BBWAA. Alex Bregman was the only other player to receive first-place votes with 13.
Trout still manufactured his third award despite missing the final few weeks of the regular season. He hit .291/.438/.645, with 45 home runs and 104 RBI while leading the American League in on-base percentage and slugging percentage.
The 28-year old now sits behind only Barry Bonds with seven for the most MVP awards of all time by a single player. He is also amongst a logjam of legends who have won three — just to name a few: Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, and Joe DiMaggio.
