Sluggers Freeman and Abreu named baseball’s MVPs
NEW YORK — Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman easily won the NL MVP award Thursday, topping off a trying year that saw him become so ill with COVID -19 he prayed “please don’t take me.”
Chicago White Sox slugger José Abreu earned the AL MVP, a reward for powering his team back into the playoffs for the first time since 2008.
Freeman got 28 of the 30 firstplace ballots in voting by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts got the other two firsts to finish second and San Diego third baseman Manny Machado was third.
In a season affected from spring training to the World Series by the pandemic, perhaps it was fitting the final major award of the year went to someone infected by the virus.
Three weeks before the delayed opening day in late July, Freeman’s body temperature spiked at 104.5 degrees and he lost his sense of taste and smell. At one point, he recalled, he said a little prayer because “I wasn’t ready.”
“I got off to such a slow start,” Freeman said on the MLB Network after Dale Murphy, a twotime NL MVP with the Braves, announced the winner. “I just didn’t know when I would get my legs back.”
The 31-year-old Freeman quickly found his footing, batting .341 with 13 home runs and 53 RBIs while playing all 60 games. A powerful lefty batter with the ability to spray the ball all over the field, he led the majors in hitting 23 doubles and scoring 51 runs. Boosted by the four-time AllStar, the Braves won the NL East and came within one win of reaching the World Series for the first time since 1999.
Freeman is the sixth different player in Braves franchise history to be the NL MVP. Chipper Jones most recently took the honour in 1999 — Freeman wears a tattered Braves T-shirt under his uniform that was passed down to him from Jones.
Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. finished fourth in the voting and Washington outfielder Juan Soto was fifth.
Cleveland third baseman José Ramírez finished second in the AL MVP voting and Yankees infielder DJ LeMahieu was third.
Abreu led the majors with 60 RBIs and 148 total bases, and topped the AL with 76 hits and a .617 slugging percentage. He played in all 60 games during the virus-shortened season as Chicago claimed a wild-card spot.
The 33-year-old Abreu batted .317 with 19 home runs, connecting six times in a threegame series against the Cubs in late August. That barrage of long balls at Wrigley Field was part of his 22-game hitting streak, the longest in the majors this year.
Abreu was the 2014 AL Rookie of the Year and is a three-time All-Star. He became the fourth different White Sox player to win the AL MVP, joining Frank Thomas (1993-94), Dick Allen (1972) and Nellie Fox (1959).
Abreu was the third Cubanborn player to be an MVP, along with Jose Canseco and Zoilo Versalles.
This was the first time since Ryan Howard and Justin Morneau that a pair of first basemen won the MVPs.
Freeman got a $185,185 bonus and Abreu received $37,037 for winning in contract bonuses prorated because of the shortened season.
AL Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber of Cleveland was fourth and Angels outfielder Mike Trout was fifth. A threetime AL MVP, Trout had finished in the top four every season since he was AL Rookie of the Year in 2012.