The suspense to discover whom we've labeled baseball's best player must be agonizing, but before scrolling through the list, allow us a few bullet points and scatter graphs to explain the methodology that led to the selection of . . .
OK, fine. It's Mike Trout.
But the rest of the list isn't so clear cut. Three other outfielders can lay claim to the second-best player in baseball, and all of them are MVPs.
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Do we go Mookie Betts, the former Red Sox Gold Glover and 30-30 star? Or how about Cody Bellinger, Betts' Dodgers teammate, another Gold Glover with 50-homer potential? Then there's Brewers standout Christian Yelich, yet another Gold Glover, who's also a two-time defending batting champ.
Decisions, decisions. Lower on this list you'll find the two highest-rated players on the Red Sox in shortstop Xander Bogaerts and third baseman Rafael Devers, two exceptional building blocks for a team in transition. But what this list won't include are three pitchers guaranteed not to play in 2020 because of Tommy John surgery — Noah Syndergaard of the Mets, Luis Severino of the Yankees, and of course Chris Sale of the Red Sox.
We've already gone through the first 75 players, which you can see here — Part 1, Numbers 100-76; Part 2, Numbers 75-51; Part 3, Numbers 50-26 — but now it's time for some of the hardest decisions.
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