Introducing the 2016 American League Most Valuable Player

Generally speaking I try to shy away from hyperbole. Especially on Twitter, where it has a two-pronged blast of negativity: it tends to be annoying ("that was the best catch ever!" or "best scene in TV history!" or it can come back to look foolish later on ("the Bruins sure got a great return for Tyler Seguin in Reilly Smith" or "Scott Chandler is gonna give the Pats that two-tight end look they had with Hernandez"). You know, the hard hitting stuff like that.

But after last night's game in Baltimore, it's really unavoidable: Mookie Betts has assumed the pole position in the race for the American League's Most Valuable Player.

Just to get you up to speed, Betts is currently slashing .315/.355/.571 with 28 home runs and 89 RBIs.
The average is second in the AL (with David Ortiz and Xander Bogaerts next in line, for what it's worth), his OPS of .926 is sixth. He's tied for seventh in home runs, tied for third in RBIs, even tied for sixth in steals with 18 just for good measure.

Prior to this week, Betts had done it all almost exclusively as a leadoff hitter. Not even Rickey Henderson, the consensus greatest leadoff man of all-time, has ever had a season like this. His career high in homers was 28 (remember, it's only Aug. 17 and Mookie's there) and in RBIs, Mookie has already lapped Rickey's career-best 74. He's now behind David Ortiz in the lineup, which doesn't make much sense seeing as how Ortiz is 40 and can't run, but I digress.

I'm not really into WAR (wins above replacement, and Homer Simpson can explain why) but if you're into that kind of thing, he's third in the AL behind Mike Trout (on a team that's 20 games below .500) and Jose Altuve (the diminutive second baseman from Houston who's the best player the mainstream fans haven't caught onto yet). The Astros appear on the outside looking in of the playoffs, which I still say matters in the MVP race.

Speaking of Trout, aren't he and Bryce Harper supposed to be baseball's first $500 million men? Are we sure Betts isn't sprinting his way into the discussion, at just 23 years old himself?

I worried I was being reactionary to the moment by including Betts in my fictional starting lineup of the 2016 USA Olympic baseball roster. He's not just safely on the hypothetical roster, he's a lock to be in the starting lineup and hit leadoff OR cleanup. Whatever his heart desires.

Betts' heroics last night vs. Baltimore (2-for-4, 2 HR, 5 RBIs) won't resemble a turning point for the Red Sox, since it was their fifth win in a row. And for all we know, they'll lose later tonight. But after stumbling vs. the rebuilding Yankees and sweeping a truly awful Arizona team, it was starting to appear the Red Sox truly may be frauds in the context of this season: beating up on the terrible teams, but unable to sack up against a team either directly ahead or lurking behind them in the standings.

After Fernando Abad continued to do his very best Rudy Seanez imitation, Betts answered the call with a tie-breaking two-run homer in the top of the eighth. Boston is now in a dead heat with the Orioles, each team 66-52, and even with the Blue Jays (68-52) in the loss column.

People forget that Rudy Seanez actually had two stints with the Red Sox, in both '03 and '06. In each case, the Sox won the World Series -- the season after his departure. Cue the "hm" emoji.

I never envisioned a scenario where my first-born son wouldn't be named "Tom Brady Levin," but "Mookie Levin" is skyrocketing up the charts to the point "Zdeno Levin" may never need to come to be.

Betts was drafted in the fifth round in the 2011 draft. Baseball drafts are weird, because there's so many damn rounds, but you're not just supposed to stumble upon a once-in-a-generation talent with the 172nd pick of the draft (soooo close to No. 199 overall, but I digress).

Again, I'm not a WAR guy...but Betts already has more WAR than anyone else in the 2011 draft. Not exactly a first round filled with stiffs, either, as you can see.

Just to further how ridiculous this is, in the 15 drafts prior to 2011, only five hitters have produced more WAR than Betts (14.7) out of the fifth round:

• Brandon Belt, 2009 (16.2 WAR)
• Chris Davis, 2006 (17.3)
• Ryan Howard, 2001 (15.1)
• Aubrey Huff, 1998 (20.0)
• Michael Young, 1997 (24.2)

And remember, those are career totals. Young and Huff are long gone, Howard's likely done at the end of this season. Again, what I hate about WAR is that it takes a bunch of nerds to calculate it, and said nerds can't even agree on one equation; Baseball Reference and Fan Graphs each have their own calculation of WAR, for example. This isn't cut and dry like that quadratic formula you learned in 8th grade algebra (x equals the opposite b plus or minus the square root of b squared all over 4ac or something. Did I get it? Math friends lemme know). But we're on a trajectory where Betts could become the greatest fifth round pick...ever?

He's only played 312 big league games thus far. That's less than two full season's worth. We've been duped by hot prospects before, in the not too distant past in Boston. Will Middlebrooks. Daniel Bard. Ryan Kalish. Craig Hansen. And those are just the ones who made it to the bigs for a cup of Dunkies.

Middlebrooks may not have panned out in Boston, but he sure panned out in the game of life.

There's a slew of average players the Red Sox traded who went on to become productive big leaguers, like a Josh Reddick, Brandon Moss, Jed Lowrie or Justin Masterson. But none of them ever evolved into full-fledged stars, and hardly even all-stars (Moss and Masterson have one appearance each in the mid-summer classic).

Realistically, prior to the arrival of Betts, Bogaerts and Jackie Bradley Jr., you know who the last prospect who truly developed and made it in Boston? Clay Buchholz.

When you realize Clay Buchholz is the last Red Sox prospect to pan out prior to Betts/Bogaerts/Bradley

So pardon me for getting a little overexcited that it would appear we finally have the next generation of homegrown Red Sox stars following the Pedroia/Ellsbury/Lester/Papelbon/Buchholz post-'04 group. (Should I throw Hyde Park's own Manny Delcarmen in there too?)

No matter what happens down the stretch, 2016 is going to be a memorable one for Red Sox fans. This is David Ortiz's swan song, and I now firmly believe he is retiring after calling BS the first four months of the season. But there's a pretty good chance that when 2016 is examined years from now, the headline won't be Ortiz's exit, or Farrell's firing after an inevitable botching of the bullpen in September, or (hopefully not) the trade of Anderson Espinoza for Drew Pomeranz.

It'll be the moment Mookie Betts fully arrived, locked and loaded, as maybe, just maybe, the best all-around player in baseball. Not to mention an ace bowler.