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OC Register: Alexander: Mike Trout, Cody Bellinger help SoCal corner the market on MVPs

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By AngelsWin.com
in LA Angels | MLB Daily

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Yes, we still have no recent World Series championship banners here, and the search goes on for the cheat code to October.

(Then again, maybe we should rephrase that in honor of the Houston Astros.)

But Thursday afternoon’s Most Valuable Player announcements, honoring the Angels’ Mike Trout and the Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger, offered a reminder: Southern California baseball fans are blessed. We in this region are treated to individual brilliance on a nightly basis.

Trout again reigns as American League MVP, and I’m not sure what’s more striking: That he’s only the sixth three-time winner in the history of the AL award, that since 2012 he’s finished below second only once, that the only guy with more MVP plaques is Barry Bonds with seven … or that in all this time, Trout has participated in one postseason series.

He confirmed Thursday, by the way, that he will be as active as the front office needs him to be in recruiting free agents (and if GM Billy Eppler is smart, he’ll have Trout lobbing a call to free agent pitcher Gerrit Cole ASAP).

Trout can, if he wishes, encapsulate his pitch in this sentence from Thursday’s conference call: “I wouldn’t have signed the (12-year, $426.5 million) extension if I didn’t think we were going in the right direction.”

Trout won this MVP despite not playing after Sept. 7, requiring surgery on his right foot; he verified that he expects to be 100 percent for spring training. But ask yourself how many more games the 72-90 Angels might have lost without him? His bWAR was 8.3, but double digits might be a more reasonable estimate.

And he addressed the question that I’m sure some voters and more fans ask: How can you be Most Valuable if your team finishes fourth in the five-team AL West?

“I come in every year to try to be the best,” he said. “At the end of the year, if I’m in the conversation, that means I worked hard and had a good year. Obviously, people say you need to make the playoffs. I’m doing everything I can to try to help the team win. … I let other people decide this. I go out there and just put up the best numbers I can.”

Meanwhile, up the 5 Freeway, Cody Bellinger’s reinvention in 2019 won him the National League award. And the difference between Bellinger and the Milwaukee Brewers’ Christian Yelich might have been summed up in something that I said at midsummer, but something that was far from an original thought: Wherever Bellinger played – center field, right field, first base – he was the Dodgers’ best defensive player.

“I definitely think that helped,” he said on the MLB Network’s awards show. “I don’t know exactly what goes into the votes, but I’m glad that I had the opportunity to show off what I can do this year out there, for sure.”

This awards haul for our region is not unprecedented. Trout shared the SoCal spotlight when he won the award for the first time in 2014, because some guy named Clayton Kershaw went 21-3 with a 1.77 ERA and added the NL MVP to his third Cy Young Award.

That was five years ago, and it is a reminder that nothing is guaranteed, given the process of reinvention Kershaw has faced the last few years. He was then 26. Trout is 28.

Bellinger is 24. He’s going to be a factor for a while, you’d think.

“I’m extremely happy for Bellinger,” Trout said. “He had an incredible year. It seemed like we really couldn’t get him out when we played him. The way he handled his adjustment made it pretty special. … I talk to Dino (Ebel) a little bit, and he says a lot of great things about him.”

Ebel, of course, was on Mike Scioscia’s Angels coaching staff for 12 seasons, then moved over to Dave Roberts’ staff with the Dodgers last year. He, too, has been pretty privileged.

“The American League (announcement) was after us,” Bellinger said during his conference call, “and my dad (Clay) said, ‘Dude, you won the same award as Trout, and he’s the best player in the history of the game.’

“To even come close to that is amazing. He’s an unbelievable player, and it’s cool playing against him (two series) a year.”

For what it’s worth, it’s the 12th time that players from the same market have won MVP awards in the same season. The Dodgers have been involved in six, but four of them involved Brooklyn and the Yankees.

The Trout/Kershaw combination in 2014 spawned a billboard, and an accompanying social media competition, before the following year’s spring training Freeway Series. The slogan: “Is Your MVP Red Or Blue?”

(Also for what it’s worth, Trout is 2 for 13 lifetime against Kershaw. Both of his hits came during that 2014 season.)

There won’t be that kind of head-to-head when Trout and Bellinger share the field next season. But it will be absolutely worth watching. They might want to start working on the billboard design now.

“With the Dodgers, obviously, it’s always a battle when we go up to L.A. and when they come to us,” Trout said, adding: “It’s pretty cool to bring both (MVP) trophies back to Southern California.”

There’s one Dodgers-Angels event that would be even better, and it would take place in October. But let’s hold off on that wishful thinking for a while, at least until the Angels assemble the type of team that Trout deserves around him

jalexander@scng.com

@Jim_Alexander on Twitter

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