Seager making case for NL MVP Award

For most of the summer, the question around Corey Seager would be whether he could hold off fellow standout first-year shortstops Trevor Story and Aledmys Diaz (among other players, including Seung Hwan Oh and Jon Gray) to win the National League Rookie of the Year Award. Now that both Story and Diaz are sidelined with thumb injuries, Seager’s path to the NL ROY Award seems to be something of a foregone conclusion, assuming his own health.

So let’s ask a more important question: Might Seager, who is expected to face David Price and the Red Sox on Sunday night’s free MLB Plus broadcast, be building a case for the NL Most Valuable Player Award? Could he be just the third player in history, joining Fred Lynn in 1975 and Ichiro Suzuki in 2001, to win both the Rookie of the Year Award and the MVP Award in the same season?

It’s been an unusual season in the NL, as far as MVP arguments go. For most of the year, the unthinkable brilliance of Clayton Kershaw had him squarely in the lead, but he’s now missed so much time due to injury (and without a clear return date) that he’s probably out of the discussion. You might have argued for Matt Carpenter, before he was injured. Early in the year, Bryce Harper’s outstanding April put him into the spotlight, but he’s struggled for months since. Good players on likely non-playoff teams like Nolan Arenado, Starling Marte, Wil Myers, Paul Goldschmidt and Joey Votto won’t have a chance, as unfair and infuriating as that is.

So at the moment, with all due respect to Brandon Crawford and Marcell Ozuna, the NL MVP Award race seems to come down to four names: Seager, Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Daniel Murphy. That’s a rookie shortstop, …

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