WAR loves Angels players as compensation for hating former Angels prospect Dante Bichette so much.
Ohtani is pretty great, but I can't for the life of me figure out how he has a nearly identical pitching WAR to Justin Verlander and Alex Manoah when looking at their stat lines next to each other. Is strikeout percentage ranked that much more important then nearly every other statistic on the stat sheet, including ERA, Whip and Innings load?
As far as hitting. He's having an average J.D. Martinez type season as a DH. No, not one of his better seasons...one of his average seasons....except Martinez did actually play in the field every once in awhile, even if he wasn't very good at it.
I get that nobody has done what Ohtani has done, as good as he's done it in a very long time.
He's very good, but not great, at two different positions (one of which does not play in the field). This frees up the Angels to...maybe add one more roster spot near the end of the bullpen, or the end of the bench to add more depth. A player who likely wouldn't register as a blip on the WAR scale. Valuable sure, but arguable exactly how valuable on a team that has two of the most valuable analytical players in the league, and very little to show for it.
It's very interesting...very impressive, etc, etc, etc......but can't wrap my head around how that's more valuable then what Judge is doing this year.
BTW, I don't think the MVP race will be close. I think Judge will run away with it...but get ready to be bombarded by article after article from stat head contrarians whining about how badly Ohtani got ripped off from winning a 2nd MVP in a row.