CLEVELAND — Even before it was shortened to 60 games, one of the biggest questions entering the Cleveland Indians' 2020 season was whether Jose Ramirez could return to his MVP finalist form.
With less than a week now remaining in the 2020 campaign, the results are in. And the answer is a resounding "yes."
With the Indians on the verge of securing a spot in this season's expanded postseason, there isn't a player in the American League -- or perhaps all of baseball -- who is hotter than Ramirez. In Cleveland's last five games, the 2-time All-Star has tallied five home runs, helping the Indians bounce back from an eight-game losing streak with a 4-1 run.
Five games, of course, is a small sample size, even in a season that only consists of 60 games. But Ramirez's season-long stat line -- .290 batting average (.971 OPS), 16 home runs, 41 RBIs -- have put him right in the thick of the 2020 American League MVP race, with ESPN's Jeff Passan even making the case that the Cleveland third baseman should be the current front-runner for the award.
"Before mounds of debris come flying from the South Side of Chicago, let's do some blind resume action," Passan wrote on Tuesday.
"Player A: .355/.390/.590, 10 HR, 21 RBI, 44 R, 5 SB, 2.5 FanGraphs WAR, 2.4 Baseball-Reference WAR
"Player B: .290/.376/.595, 16 HR, 41 RBI, 41 R, 10 SB, 3.0 fWAR, 2.3 rWAR
"Player C: .333/.381/.644, 18 HR, 55 RBI, 40 R, 0 SB, 2.7 fWAR, 3.0 rWAR
"Player A is the White Sox's Tim Anderson. Player C is the White Sox's Jose Abreu. Player B is Ramirez, who added a three-run home run in the first inning Monday and since Aug. 26 leads the major leagues with 11 home runs and sports an OPS of better than 1.200. He's tops in all of baseball in FanGraphs WAR, too."
As Passan noted, Ramirez's main competition for the honor will likely come from Anderson and Abreu, who each play for the A.L. Central's first-place Chicago White Sox. But because they play for the same team, it's reasonable to believe that Anderson and Abreu could siphon votes from each other, paving the way for Ramirez to finish in first place.
Ironically, Ramirez also has some potential MVP competition in the Cleveland clubhouse, with A.L. Cy Young front-runner Shane Bieber having also garnered buzz. Traditionally, however, MVP voters have held a bias against pitchers, with only one player at the position in each league (Justin Verlander in 2011, Clayton Kershaw in 2014) having won the award since 1993.
Based on the most recent round of odds -- which were released before Ramirez's hot streak -- Bieber was actually considered the betting favorite at 4-1 odds. Either way, the new question being asked in Cleveland isn't if the Indians will be bringing home some hardware, but rather, how much?