Long before baseball sprouted an entire industry obsessed with quantifying the value of players, the word enshrined itself into the game without much fanfare. The MVP Awards, whose 2022 winners will be announced Thursday night, date to 1931 in their current form. Before that, but after they were simply a car company giveaway based on batting average, the AL and NL each awarded a League Trophy to the “player who proved of greatest service to his team.” And by the late 1920s, the Associated Press had picked up the colloquial “most valuable” language that was formalized when the BBWAA took over voting.
Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani? The AL MVP debate challenges WAR, but don't disregard the ubiquitous stat. Here's why
