Twins Daily Awards 2024: Most Valuable Player

[Nick Nelson]

In a season full of incomplete performances across the roster, Carlos Correa's stood out as most valuable. Giving the MVP award to someone who played half a season says a lot about this Twins team as a whole.

The 2024 Twins season is not one that we'll look back at in a positive light. The way it ended leaves a bitter taste that overwhelms all other senses as we attempt to reflect and analyze the year that was.

Small consolation as it may be, the Twins did experience a fair amount of success over the course of the season. They finished above .500, albeit it barely. From mid-April through mid-August, they were one of the winningest teams in baseball. Before the bottom fell out in the final six weeks, the Twins were on a 92-win pace with a 95% chance to make the playoffs.

So, as we tried to reach a decision on who was deserving of Twins Daily's MVP nod this year, Twins Daily's voters had to ask: Who was most instrumental in the success they did have? 

It was unfortunately not an easy question to answer. Across the Twins roster there were a number of incomplete performances, with key players everywhere either missing significant chunks of the season or staying on the field but seeing sharp, costly drop-offs in production.

Although the voting from our panel of 14 was relatively close and widely distributed, Carlos Correa emerged as the clear-cut leader in the tally, despite missing almost half the season. His play on the field was strong enough, and impactful enough, to outweigh all of the missed time. We'll talk about his accomplishments and why Correa was the choice shortly, but first, let's take a look at the final voting results and how the rest of the field stacked up.

Twins Daily 2024 Team MVP Balloting: Final Points Tally

1. Carlos Correa: 96
2. Griffin Jax: 81
3. Byron Buxton: 77
4. Bailey Ober: 58
5. Pablo Lopez: 51
6. Carlos Santana: 40
7. Willi Castro: 39
8. Matt Wallner: 20
9. Joe Ryan: 15
10. Simeon Woods Richardson: 12
11. Royce Lewis: 7

Reviewing the Rest of the Field
To understand why Correa ended up as the choice despite playing only 86 games, it's important to consider why the rest of the contenders fell short. Here's a quick rundown of the players who received votes, and why their cases didn't quite win out.

• Griffin Jax (2nd): For full disclosure, Jax was the No. 1 choice on my ballot. If we're talking about players who had a complete season, excelled from front to back, and consistently helped the team win, he strikes me as the most viable candidate. However, understandably it is tough to award MVP to a guy who threw 71 innings, even in extreme leverage.
• Byron Buxton (3rd): Buxton's comeback year deserves more appreciation. He crossed the 100-game milestone for the first time in seven years, starting 87 times in center field after making zero starts there in 2023. He rediscovered his dominance at the plate with 18 homers and a 137 OPS+. However, Buxton still missed nearly as much time as Correa, and wasn't quite as excellent while on the field.
• Bailey Ober (4th): The best argument for Ober is that the rotation was the team's biggest strength, and he was arguably their best starter on balance. That said, his proneness to blow-ups left him with an ERA that was barely above average, and well below the standard he set in 2023.
• Pablo López (5th): Largely the same story as Ober. López was brilliant at times but at the end of the day he wasn't quite the guy the Twins needed him to be.
• Carlos Santana (6th): He gets credit for durability, defense and contract value, but overall Santana was more good than great.
• Willi Castro (7th): His All-Star first half gave way to a punchless second half, with Castro's decline playing a prominent role in the offense's devastating late slump. His case is helped by versatility and reliability, but he gets a big detraction for batting .200 with a .562 OPS in September as the season withered a way.
• Matt Wallner (8th): He was the team's best hitter in the second half, but missed nearly the entire first half after slumping badly out of the gates. 
• Joe Ryan (9th): He was the team's best pitcher in the first half, but missed nearly the entire second half after injuring his shoulder in early August.
• Simeon Woods Richardson (10th): The rookie played a crucial role in stabilizing the rotation, rattling off quality outings as demonstrated by the team's 17-11 record in his starts. However, he tailed off at the end of the season and his final numbers were fairly mediocre.
• Royce Lewis (11th): I'm including Lewis on this list only to make the point that he did NOT even make the top 10, despite posting a 1.021 OPS in his first 40 games. Sadly, for all of his prior highlights, Lewis's mega-slump down the stretch was the story of his season.

Why We Picked Carlos Correa as Twins 2024 MVP
There are two lenses through which we can view Correa as the most valuable player for the 2024 Twins: the more objective statistical case and the more subjective narrative case. Let's cover both.

The Statistical Case
It's pretty straightforward, actually. Despite missing nearly half the season, Correa led all Twins players in fWAR (4.3) and bWAR (3.7). He led all Twins position players in Win Probability Added (2.08), ranking second behind only Jax (2.20) among all players. 

When he was on the field, the 29-year-old Correa was as good as he's ever been, making it all the more saddening that he was forced to miss so much time. He slashed .310/.388/.517 with 20 doubles, two triples and 14 home runs for a 152+ OPS, second-highest in his career behind 2017 (155), when he was an All-Star and World Series champion.

Coming off the worst season of his career, Correa carried some serious question marks into this campaign. Would there be lingering effects from the plantar fasciitis issue that thoroughly hampered him in 2023? The answer, in the first half of 2024, proved to be a resounding no. 

Correa's production and impact when on the field can hardly be overstated. To put his team-leading 4.3 fWAR over 86 games into context, it's higher than any Twins position player produced for an 87-win team in 2023. In fact, the only Twins hitter in the last five years to post a higher fWAR than Correa did this year was ... Carlos Correa, in 2022 (4.6).

I get that it's tricky to view Correa as an MVP when he missed so much time, but it's not like the team had to leave shortstop unmanned while he was sidelined. His contributions when available turned perhaps the most critical position on the field into a major strength for the Twins, who ranked sixth in the majors in fWAR at shortstop. Four of the five teams ahead of them (KC, NYM, BAL, LAD) reached the playoffs.

The Narrative Case
Because the award is dubbed "Most Valuable Player" instead of simply "Most Outstanding Player," it's worthwhile to look beyond the stats and examine Correa's individual impact on the outcome of the season. One can certainly argue that his absence for most of the second half, as the team buckled and collapsed, was a major ding against his value, even if not his fault. 

But the reality is that Correa was a huge reason why the Twins even had such a favorable situation to fumble away, and he did everything in his power at the end to stop it from coming to fruition.

On June 8th, Minnesota fell 4-0 in Pittsburgh, dropping to 33-31 and leaving them 8 ½ games out of first place. At the time, Correa's slash line sat at a solid yet ordinary .255/.324/.436. Things weren't looking so hot. But the Twins were about to make their move, with C4 leading the charge.

The following day, in the series finale at PNC, he went 3-for-5 with two RBIs in an 11-5 win. From that point until he went down on July 12th, Correa slashed .386/.453/.640 with eight homers and 23 RBIs in 29 games. The Twins, during this span, went 20-10, cutting the division deficit in half. On the date he was scratched from the lineup in San Francisco with what turned out to be another case of plantar fasciitis, the Twins had an 85% chance to make the postseason, per FanGraphs, and he ranked 10th among all major-league players in fWAR. 

Hi spending the next two months on the sidelines certainly played a role in Minnesota's downfall but on the day Correa returned, September 14th, the Twins still had an 81% chance to make the playoffs. He did everything he could to ensure that they would, slashing .325/.460/.500 in his final 11 games. 

Despite his best efforts, he couldn't stem the tide of this team's free-fall. The Twins went 4-10 following his activation, reflecting the limited impact any one player can have on a baseball team. Correa's third game back perfectly exemplified the lack of support he received as the season slipped away; in a crucial game against Cleveland, he went 3-for-5 and drove in all four of Minnesota's runs, including a go-ahead two-run single in the 10th. The Twins still lost, 5-4, because the 4-through-9 spots in the lineup went 1-for-25 and the beleaguered bullpen broke down.

Despite playing in only 53% of the team's games, Carlos Correa stood out to our voting body as the most valuable player on the 2024 Twins. That says a lot about the rest of the players on the roster and their seasons, but we shouldn't overlook what it says about Correa, who was about as good as anyone could possibly ask for in the 86 games he was able to play.

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Do you agree that Carlos Correa was MVP of this year's Twins team? If not, who would your choice be and why? Let's hear your thoughts in the comments.

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[LambchoP]

They've got to find a way to get more games out of all our "star guys". It'll never happen unfortunately, but can you imagine the numbers these guys could put up if they were to play 150 games? Every year is the same story. So much potential in this group IF we can keep everyone healthy. 

[Matthew Taylor]

My ballot:

1. Griffin Jax

2. Bailey Ober

3. Byron Buxton

4. Simeon Woods Richardson

5. Carlos Correa

6. Carlos Santana

7. Pablo Lopez

8. Matt Wallner

[jmlease1]

I think this is fair. It's a little depressing to keep seeing "did great, but missed half the season" in various permutations for Correa, Buxton, Ryan, Wallner...

[BillyBallLives]

For whoever wins MVP in 2025, the bar has been set about as low as it goes. 

[cmoss84]

3-way tie between Willi, Ober, and Jax. 

[USAFChief]

I'd agree Correa was the 2024 Twins MVP.

This is also a rather stark and depressing depiction of the mediocre talent on this team.

 

[Parfigliano]

Ober, Ryan, Correa.

[tony&rodney]

2 hours ago, cmoss84 said:

3-way tie between Willi, Ober, and Jax. 

Agree because they suited up all year. Then again ....

 

4 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

This is also a rather stark and depressing depiction of the mediocre talent on this team.

Time to fix the roster is this offseason. The defense, base-running, and situational hitting must improve.

An aside on Correa, I have know people who took Lipidor (sp?) for blood pressure to suffer from PF, but see their painful problems subside when they switched to Cresidor (sp?). Plantar fasciitus seems debilitating from what I have seen, although I have never had personal experience with the problem. PF can go away and never return as well. Correa is easily the most valuable player when on the field, but he needs to play 130-150+ games.

 

[Mike Sixel]

CC put up the 26th most fWAR of ANY HITTER IN ALL OF BASEBALL.....he's clearly the MVP, and the bar isn't low and it isn't sad.....seriously. 

[big dog]

Why We Picked Carlos Correa as Twins 2024 MVP

Because we won when he played and we lost when he didn't, and well, frankly, we just didn't really have anybody else who played the whole year who was all that good.

 

[Mike Sixel]

Incessant negativity on a thread celebrating the MVP. Sigh. 

[pierre75275]

I can't really argue with the Correa selection but I really don't think SWR gets the credit he deserves. Without him doing what he did, we are looking at his starts being taken by guys like Varland, Dobnak and Bousley, and instead of bemoaning the falling out of the season, we would be talking about how we barely had a better record than Oakland and how excited we would be the the draft lottery .

[big dog]

7 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

Incessant negativity on a thread celebrating the MVP. Sigh. 

Was there really an MVP on a team that was barely above .500? A team that badly underperformed when it mattered the most? Correa had a great half-year, but it was a half-year. Jax pitched 70 innings. Are you going to argue Castro had a better than sort of good year? We had guys with great stretches. Somebody wins a participation trophy. I honestly don't see much to celebrate this year.

Oh wait, Buxton played a hundred games! Definitely gets a participation trophy.

Just a whole lot of disappointment here.

OK, at least this isn't as bad as the year Ron Coomer was our All-Star, I'll give you that.

I'm not usually very negative, have never even called the Pohlads cheap or Rocco an idiot, but this was a devastatingly disappointing season. I don't see much valuable about anyone in 2024. Without Correa (for the whole year instead of just half) we would have...also missed the playoffs.

Even the White Sox can pick an MVP, that doesn't mean it automatically has to be celebrated.

 

 

[ewen21]

On 10/11/2024 at 3:32 PM, Mike Sixel said:

CC put up the 26th most fWAR of ANY HITTER IN ALL OF BASEBALL.....he's clearly the MVP, and the bar isn't low and it isn't sad.....seriously. 

He had 13 hits and 7 RBI in the second half on a team that had a monumental collapse.  You wanna crown him “Team MVP” go ahead.  
 

We have another article saying “What was the point?” signing him.  There’s your MVP.