If Charlie Blackmon doesn’t win the National League’s Most Valuable Player award this year it won’t be due to any fault of his own. Blackmon is having an historically great year and we documented a few stats which he has already accomplished or could accomplish and added some context.
Historic MVP
There have only been five instances in the history of Major League Baseball where a player accumulated 40 home runs, 15 triples and 30 doubles in a single season. The MVP hasn’t been awarded each of those five years but any time it was awarded the player who accomplished the feat won the MVP. The players to do it are Babe Ruth in 1921, Lou Gehrig in 1927, 1930 and 1931 and Joe DiMaggio in 1937. As of Monday, Blackmon has 34 dingers, 14 three-baggers and 31 two-baggers.
3/4/5
Not since Jim Edmonds in 2004 has a centerfielder had a slashline of .300/.400/.500 or better. Mickey Mantle has accomplished this five timesDiMaggio four times and Duke Snider and Willie Mays also made that happened three times. Overall this 3/4/5 slash line has been done just 28 times in the history of the game. Blackmon is currently at .339/.405/.618.
Driving and Dinning
Craig Biggio had the NL record for RBI from the leadoff spot for a single season with 88. Blackmon reached that mark on Saturday. Blackmon has 89 RBI on the year which is within the top 20 in all of baseball this year. He needs just one more for the new league record.
16
Blackmon has played in 141 games in 2017, he has only not gotten on base 16 times among games where he got more than one plate appearance. He always finds a way to get on even if he doesn’t get a hit, get hit or draw a walk, he sometimes reaches via error because of his speed. Note that the 16 do not count fielder’s choices.
Rice Cooked
Blackmon is the first player with 14 triples and 34 homers in the same season since Jim Rice in 1978. The only person close to this mark in recent years was Jimmie Rollins who hit 20 triples and 30 home runs for the Phillies in 2007.
Crossing the Dish
Blackmon has scored 128 runs himself which leads the league by nearly 20. In fact, it’s so good that it would’ve led baseball last year and the year before that and the year before that and the… you have to go back to Mike Trout in 2012 to find someone who scored more than what Blackmon already has in 2017 and that was 129, just one more than what Chuck has now. Jimmy Rollins was the last NL player to top what Blackmon has at the moment when he scored 139 in 2007. No NL player has scored more than 140 since Sammy Sosa in 2001.
