We've been heading in this direction over the past decade, but it's now official: The Most Valuable Player Award has become, to the delight of analytics aficionados across baseball land, the best player in the league award. Traditionally, the writers based MVP honors on some sort of undefined fusion of on-field performance and team performance. The MVP winner usually -- but not always -- came from a playoff team.
This season, none of the six finalists reached the postseason. This is especially glaring with the National League finalists, as Bryce Harper's Phillies finished 82-80, Fernando Tatis Jr.