Phillies: The case for two trophies in Philadelphia this year
What are the chances the Philadelphia Phillies have both a National League MVP and Cy Young winner when this season is over?
Updated odds for the National League MVP recently came out, listing new Phillies star Bryce Harper as the favorite. Last year, Aaron Nola finished third in Cy Young voting. Both have a realistic shot at an award this year, but what are the odds they both win?
Having an MVP and Cy Young winner from the same team isn’t uncommon; in fact, it’s happened 27 times. The last time one team had a Cy Young and MVP winner in the same season was the 2014 Dodgers when Clayton Kershaw (21-3, 1.77 ERA, 239 strikeouts) won both awards.
The last time a team had two different players win the award, was the 2013 Tigers, who had Miguel Cabrera (.348, 44 HR, 137 RBI) take home AL MVP, and Max Scherzer (21-3, 2.90 ERA, 240 K) take home the Cy Young.
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The last Philadelphia pitcher to take home the Cy Young was the late great Roy Halladay (21-10, 2.44 ERA, 219 K) in 2010 on the strength of one of the greatest pitching seasons in baseball history. Steve Bedrosian (1987), John Denny (1983) and Steve Carlton (1982,1980,1977,1972) also won the award in the red pinstripes.
Jimmy Rollins (.296, 30 HR, 94 RBI) was the last Phillie to win NL MVP, taking home the award in 2007.
Ryan Howard (2006), Mike Schmidt (1986,1981,1980), Jim Konstanty (1950) and Chuck Klein (1932) are the other Phils to win.
Harper obviously has a pretty good chance at winning MVP (Vegas wouldn’t have made him the favorite otherwise). He had a bit of a down year last year, but he already owns one MVP award (2015) and has obscenely good career numbers in his new home park. He bats .268 with an OPS of .930 and has 14 homers in 50 career games at Citizen’s Bank Park, the most of any road stadium. At that rate, he’ll hit about 22 homers over a full home slate in South Philadelphia.
ZiPS projects Harper to slash .271/.407/.537 this year, with 35 homers and 109 RBI. They also have him finishing third in the league in weighted on base average (wOBA) at .395, behind only Mike Trout (.424) and Juan Soto (.404). Nolan Arenado figures to be Harper’s chief competition for the award, while Manny Machado or Christian Yelich could give Harper a run for his money as well.
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Aaron Nola faces longer odds than Harper. His win total will probably be hurt by playing in the NL East--which features the two pitchers who finished ahead of him for last year’s Cy Young. One thing working in his favor is the boost in defense behind him. He played in front of a historically bad defense last year, but the offseason additions of Jean Segura, Andrew McCutchen and Harper should drastically improve the Phillies‘ fielding.
ZiPS is pretty pessimistic about Nola this season, projecting him to regress to 14-9 with a 3.19 ERA. The big culprit behind the projected drop is Nola’s batting average on balls in play (BABIP), which was .251 last year, but is projected to increase to .305.
Many are not sold on Nola as a top-flight ace (or at least not to the extent he was last year), and he may well take a step back, but this projected drop in production seems a little drastic. Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer are favored to win the Cy Young this year, and Clayton Kershaw is always a threat. Even at his best, Nola will struggle to beat these guys out for the trophy.
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If you’re looking to come on over to Jersey (it’s not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, trust me) and place a wager on the Phillies, betting on Harper to win MVP might be your safest option. If you’re looking to live a little more dangerously, you could bet on Nola to win the Cy Young. He’s a higher risk bet, but he has a real shot and would pay out much more handsomely than a bet on Harper. Betting on both would be risky, but isn’t that kinda the point of gambling?