Hunt and Peck

Paul DeJong is making a MVP case - A Hunt and Peck

It is still early, but cool, right?

By lil_scooter93 May 1, 2019, 1:00pm EDT

We have discussed Paul DeJong a lot in recent days and he deserves it because he has been really good in 2019. It is still early and a lot could happen, but as of now, the Cardinals shortstop has been the best in the baseball, per Fangraphs fWAR. He has been the third best player in baseball by that metric behind Cody Bellinger and Christian Yelich.

DeJong is easily the Cardinals MVP right now. He leads the team in fWAR at 2.0. The next best player has been Kolten Wong is 1.2 fWAR. He also leads all qualified hitters on the Cardinals in wRC+ with 168 and batting average with .342. Though his 5 home runs fall short of team-leaders Marcell Ozuna (10) and Paul Goldschmidt (9), the power is there in the form of a team-leading 14 doubles. DeJong has also been the best defender among qualified Cardinals position players according the defensive metric of fWAR.

The baseball season is a long one and obviously a lot can change from now until its conclusion. Right now, though, Paul Dejong has been the Cardinals best player and a key to the team’s success. He is one of the top players in baseball.

Did you see that coming?

7 early dark-horse candidates for MVP | cardinals.com