The Most Valuable Player Award, best known by its ‘MVP’ initials, is one of the most prestigious pieces of hardware a player will ever touch. With skill, work, and a bit of luck, he will have this in his awards cabinet back home.
Winning an MVP Award is not easy, though. If you don’t believe us, ask Cleveland Guardians star Jose Ramirez, who didn’t take it home even when he should have in 2020, and came close on multiple other occasions.
Will Leitch of MLB.com went through the best candidates to be crowned MVP for the first time this year, and Ramirez was, predictably, on the list.
The writer shares a major truth about the award, saying that no one can win it this early, but they can certainly lose it.
The piece listed two categories. The first one has players ‘well on their way’ to win the award for the first time, such as Bobby Witt Jr., Yordan Alvarez, Corbin Carroll, and Gunnar Henderson.
The other one was the ‘work left to do’ group, in which Ramirez appears with Manny Machado, Julio Rodríguez, and Juan Soto.
Leitch called Ramirez a perennial ‘bridesmaid’, given the fact that he has finished in the top ten of MVP voting eight times, but he has him on the list for a reason.
“The offseason extension Ramírez signed ensured that he’ll end his career in Cleveland, but he’s getting older, and despite the coolness of him becoming the first Cleveland player to homer against every other MLB team, he’s off to a slow-ish start. You know he’ll come around, but that’s the thing about an MVP race, something he knows as well as anyone: It can get too late way too early,” Leitch wrote.
Ramirez is hitting a disappointing .200 with a 90 wRC+, but he is starting to come around. He is up to two home runs and seven steals, and had a dominant game on Monday. He is still the same old Ramirez, doing both the heavy lifting and the little things to win.
It’s still not too late for Ramirez to get hot and start putting up his usual numbers. He is fresh off a 30-homer, 44-steal season in 2025 and remains one of the game’s brightest stars.
He has seven hits in his last five games, so yes: Ramirez is starting to hit his stride. In the blink of an eye, before you even notice, his wRC+ will be as good as it ever has been.
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