With good reason, Josh Hamilton is hogging all the headlines right now, just as -- again, with good reason -- Matt Kemp did through much of April. In fact, if MVP voting was held right now, those would be the respective winners in landslide fashion. But make no mistake about it: Kemp has company in the NL, in the form of former teammates David Wright and Carlos Beltran.
Wright enters this week hitting .400 -- which leads the NL -- with an MLB-best .489 on-base percentage. Beltran has an NL-best 13 homers. A cursory look around the leaderboards shows the two all over the place, too.
Wright is third in NL OPS (1.080), Beltran is fourth (1.059). Only Kemp has scored more runs than Beltran, while Wright ranks seventh. Wright is fourth in hits while Beltran is tied for the NL lead with 32 RBI.
The sabermetric stats love Wright and Beltran, too. Using Fangraphs.com's wins above replacement, only Kemp has been more valuable than either Wright or Beltran in the National League, but it's by a sliver. Kemp's fWAR is 2.3 while Beltran and Wright sit at 2.2 (Hamilton's is an absurd 3.2, by the way). Beltran and Wright are fourth and fifth in the MLB in weighted on-base average (wOBA), trailing only Hamilton, Kemp and the surprising Bryan LaHair.
Then, of course, you have the team factor.
Wright is the clear team leader of the Mets, a team that has lost Jose Reyes, Francisco Rodriguez and Beltran within the past 12 months. Yet here they sit, 19-15 and ahead of the hyped Marlins and five-time defending division champion Phillies. Wright's secret? More line drives and less fly balls. According to Fangraphs, he has zero infield popouts and a career low 26.8 fly-ball percentage, teamed with a career-best 45.4 line-drive percentage. That's why his BABIP (.452) looks awfully high but not might plummet.
Beltran "replaced" Albert Pujols in the Cardinals lineup. Obviously he doesn't play the same position, but the logistics of his signing made him the replacement. And through an injury to Lance Berkman, Beltran has been the anchor of the offense with the second-highest OPS in the majors (after, shockingly, the Rangers). They have a 2 1/2-game lead in the NL Central.
So while April was all about Kemp and May has been all about Hamilton, don't forget about these two former teammates. They are making some serious noise, even if it's being overshadowed nationally. For as little as it means, as of May 14 the NL MVP race is of the three-man variety, not just one.
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