Fernando Tatis Jr., Shane Bieber Among Baseball's Midseason Awards Frontrunners

by Julian Spivey
The shortened 2020 Major League Baseball season has already surpassed the midway point with some of the league’s 30 teams playing as many as 34 of the 60 scheduled games for this season. Due to some teams having many games postponed due to COVID-19 outbreaks within the clubhouse some, like the St. Louis Cardinals, have played as few as 24 games.
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The Los Angeles Dodgers at 24-10 currently have the best record in the National League and all of baseball. The Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics at 22-11 are currently the leaders in the American League.

Some of baseball’s biggest stars have gotten off to a hot start even with the multiple month delay before the beginning of the season and here are my picks among those hot starts for the midway MVP and Cy Young Award frontrunners in the game. 

National League MVP: Fernando Tatis Jr. (San Diego Padres)

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​The San Diego Padres young shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. has been quite the talk of the major leagues in his second full season in the bigs putting on a show with highlight reel bombs and defensive plays. Tatis Jr. currently leads the N.L. in WAR (Wins Above Replacement) at 2.2, home runs with 13 (tied with Nelson Cruz for the majors lead) and runs batted in with 30 (tied with Jose Abreu for the majors lead). Tatis Jr., along with teammate Manny Machado who’s also putting up MVP worthy number, has the Padres with the second best record currently in the N.L. at 20-14 and certainly bound for the team’s first postseason appearance in years. 

American League MVP: Jose Abreu (Chicago White Sox)

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​The Chicago White Sox have one of the most exciting offenses in all of baseball and its led by their veteran first baseman Jose Abreu. Abreu is hitting .318 this season with 12 home runs (one behind Nelson Cruz for the league lead) and a majors leading 30 RBI. Abreu has the White Sox one game behind the Cleveland Indians in the A.L. Central Division at the time of this writing with the fourth best record in the league. 

National League Cy Young: Max Fried (Atlanta Braves)

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​Without Max Fried the Atlanta Braves would be in serious trouble right now with their rotation, especially after the team’s Opening Day starter Mike Soroka went down with a torn ACL in the first few weeks of the short season. Fried has led the Braves to a current game and a half lead over the Miami Marlins in the N.L. East Division with a 5-0 record, a league leading 1.35 ERA (earned run average) and 38 strikeouts. Fried’s 2.5 WAR (wins above replacement) is currently the best of any pitcher in baseball. 

American League Cy Young: Shane Bieber (Cleveland Indians)

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​The Cleveland Indians have shown a great propensity for developing great young starting pitchers over the last decade and Shane Bieber is the latest in a long line and while other Indians pitchers like Mike Clevinger and Zach Plesac have let the team down with their behavior off the field, Bieber has been baseball’s best pitcher of 2020 thus far. Bieber has baseball’s best record thus far at 6-0 in seven starts with all seven starts being of the quality kind. His 1.35 EAR is tied with Max Fried of the Braves for the best in all of baseball and his 75 punchouts are a whopping 17 more than the next closest pitcher. Bieber is currently looking at a possible Triple Crown of pitching in the American League.