Austin Riley is the real NL MVP.....

Something something Bryce Harper went 0-14 against the Braves in the most important series of the year

He probably is but he’ll never get the credit

I just saw him on the Kiffin golf ball thread.

He's staying the hell away from here

This is the kind of thing he's been doing most of the year, that I tried to tell some guy (can't remember his screen name) a couple of weeks ago will absolutely garner Riley more votes than these stupid sites like fangraphs are predicting.

The guy had a hissy fit of epic proportions. I know people love their OPS rankings as a barometer for the MVP pecking order, but the writers tend to look at guys who carry their teams in the biggest moments and weigh that along with all of the other stats. I would be a bit surprised if he won it, just because the name recognition probably isn't there yet. But I think he finishes top three.

No matter the outcome of that, what a season he's had. Just an incredible turnaround. He was supposed to be a guy that, if he reached his full potential, would be someone who'd hit a lot of home runs and doubles, and drive in runs, but his average would never go much higher than .250, MAYBE .260... But he hit over .300 and was so consistent. And now he's doing it on the biggest stage, in the playoffs. I'm really proud of that kid. Been tracking his daily progress since he was drafted.

You can’t prove why you should win a regular season award in the playoffs.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

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WestCoastAG.

He's avoided me like the plague. I'm trolling him hard.

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I remember that he did jump in to that argument I was having, but it was another guy who was having a fit and passively "threatening" to challenge me to a bet. Which was really weird. But yeah, those two guys probably don't like seeing Riley rake right now, lol.

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He's avoided me like the plague. I'm trolling him hard

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You are my brother! It’s hilarious!
Chop on

Probably top 5 but has no chance of finishing top 3 in a league that includes Tatis, Harper and Soto.

Great year obviously though and has been superb in the playoffs.

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Probably top 5 but has no chance of finishing top 3 in a league that includes Tatis, Harper and Soto.

Great year obviously though and has been superb in the playoffs.

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Well this is what I was saying to that guy a couple of weeks ago: If we're looking at raw stats, he's definitely behind those three. But historically, winning and coming up with a significant amount of clutch hits, as he has, tends to catch the eyes of voters. That, and two of those guys missed a fairly significant number of games. To me, you have to be available. Riley played 20 more games than Harper and 31 more than Tatis. Particularly with Tatis, I don't think it's fair to miss a month of the season and be considered an MVP over guys who are there every day, contributing. And Soto's team was so bad... I just don't know how much that plays into it with the voters. Sometimes they ignore that if the player has just an incredible season, but I wouldn't call anything Soto did as being incredible. It's a different conversation if we're talking about best player, and not the ever changing definition of what makes an MVP.

So there's a world where I see Riley getting first pace votes, but I somehow suspect he ends up behind Tatis and Harper, anyway, even though I think those guys should be dinged for games missed.

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In today’s climate I think many of the voters simply look at WAR total and if guys are close then you get into the arguments of games played, team success, traditional stats, etc. Riley is so far behind those guys in WAR (Acuña finished with a higher WAR in 82 games than Riley in 160) that I think he will be way way down ballot for a lot of voters which will torpedo his final standing.

I don’t think WAR should be the end all be all for an award like this but I think many of the voters use it very very heavily.

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I don't know, man. We'll see, but I haven't seen where the writers have shown they care all that much about WAR. And nor should they. It's a very flawed stat. Mike Trout was the WAR king for I don't know how many years in a row, but he usually got beat out because his team sucks. I'll say again, that if you aren't even playing in games, how valuable are you? I just don't get how Tatis deserves consideration for being really good for 130 games, but not playing in 32 others. It's like scoring 20 runs one game and getting shutout the next. You don't get to carry over your previous success to make up for future failures (or unavailability). Or at least, you shouldn't be able to in this case.