Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition

Owls football

- By Jake Seiner

FAU hopes the program’s facility upgrades can be used as a recruiting tool in the future.

NEW YORK — Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer and Aaron Nola are going pitch for pitch in the NL Cy Young Award race.

Problem is, that prize might not do the trio justice. Not according to baseball’s advanced analytics.

With 2 weeks left in the season, it’s time to ask: Should one of those three be MVP?

“It’s the best player in the league,” deGrom said. “If that happens to be a pitcher and they can win it, then it’s well deserved.”

There’s no debating deGrom’s dominance, even if it’s not translatin­g into wins for the struggling New York Mets. Scherzer’s awardsseas­on resume is more traditiona­l, bolstered by league-leading totals in victories and strikeouts. And Nola is right there, too, in a breakout season with the Philadelph­ia Phillies.

But an MVP? For three pitchers who are going to miss the postseason? Some don’t think pitchers should even be considered for the award, though they’ve won 25 times before.

The stats devised by sabermetri­cians suggest it would be a swing and a miss not to consider a pitcher — certainly not in a year when the crop of NL hitters just doesn’t add up.

The National League has produced at least one hitter worth 6.0 wins above replacemen­t (WAR) each season since the Chicago Cubs’ Hack Wilson topped 1926 at 5.7, according to Fangraphs.

This year’s group is equally underwhelm­ing, strictly by the numbers. Milwaukee teammates Lorenzo Cain (5.4) and Christian Yelich (5.3) top the circuit, followed by Arizona’s Paul Goldschmid­t (5.2), St. Louis’ Matt Carpenter (5.2), Chicago’s Javier Baez (4.9) and Colorado’s Nolan Arenado (4.8).

For a catch-all stat like WAR — which measures contributi­ons on offense, defense, baserunnin­g and pitching — that 0.6 gap from Arenado on up is nearly negligible. Can’t go wrong choosing among them.

But that group is far behind the league’s top pitchers by the same measure. DeGrom leads the NL with 8.1 WAR, and Scherzer, Nola and Diamondbac­ks ace Patrick Corbin are also ahead of the hitters.

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