Taking a quick look at MLB’s best

WASHINGTON • By the time game 162 comes and goes on Sunday, the 2018 Major League Baseball regular season will be finished (unless there is a tiebreaking game 163 on Monday). Years from now, depending on where the sport goes from here this season will be viewed either as a pivot point on the shift back to a more action-filled game, or another data point in its continued climb toward a game increasingly based on velocity, power and inertia.

Regardless, this season will have seen more strikeouts than any other in history. It will have seen the lowest leaguewide batting average in 46 years. Strikeouts almost certainly will have outnumbered hits for the first time ever. Starting pitchers will have thrown the fewest innings, and relief pitchers the most, of any season on record. But even amid a changing game, great individual performances resonate as strongly as ever, and 2018 was full of them. Here are my choices for this season’s major awards:

American League MVP: Mookie Betts, Boston Red Sox

Betts has a .346/.437/.643 slash line entering the weekend and Gold Glove-calibre defence in right field.

National League MVP: Christian Yelich, Milwaukee Brewers

Yelich has been the game’s best player in the second half (.359/.435/.743) and has carried the Brewers from six games back to within a game of the Cubs’ NL Central lead entering the final weekend.

AL rookie of the year: Shohei Ohtani, Angels

Taken alone, either his pitching (4-2, 3.31 ERA, 1.161 WHIP, 11 strikeouts per nine innings) OR his hitting (.283/.362/.568, 22 homers in 315 at-bats) might have vaulted him into contention. But together, the Angels’ two-way sensation is a clear winner.

NL rookie of the year: Ronald Acuna Jr., Braves

AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander, Astros

NL Cy Young: Jacob deGrom, Mets

Mookie Betts