SB Nation Reacts: Yu Darvish is a top Cy Young candidate

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across MLB. Each week, we send out questions to the most plugged in Cubs fans, and fans across the country. Sign up here to join Reacts.

We have made it to the halfway point of this abbreviated 2020 MLB season. There are still a few teams playing catch-up on their schedules, but most are within a game or two either way of Game 30 of the 60-game season.

Even with a fairly small small sample size, there are clear front runners for the end-of-season awards.

In the most recent SB Nation Reacts survey, MLB fans were asked who they think deserves to win the MVP and Cy Young awards, and who will win each league’s batting average title. The most interesting name atop the fan vote was a player who has recently grabbed the league’s attention, Fernando Tatis Jr.

Tatis was followed by Mookie Betts (26 percent), Charlie Blackmon (10 percent), and Mike Yastrzemski (7 percent). Tatis Jr. wasn’t even under consideration for the award when the question was first asked in July, when Christian Yelich was the top choice.

In the American League, it was a familiar name atop the vote. Angels superstar Mike Trout, who already has three MVP awards in his trophy case, received almost two-thirds of the vote, ahead of Nelson Cruz, DJ LeMahieu and Brandon Lowe. Trout received a similar share of the vote in the preseason survey.

Voters again chose Jacob deGrom to earn the NL Cy Young award, as they did in July, by a similar margin. The Mets pitcher garnered 36 percent of the vote and Cubs righthander Yu Darvish was third in the poll.

The American League saw a new name atop the vote total. Overtaking Gerrit Cole was Cleveland ace Shane Bieber, who took nearly half the total votes.

Fans predicted that Blackmon and LeMahieu will win the NL and AL batting titles. Entering Saturday’s games, Blackmon leads the league with a .374 batting average. LeMahieu is hitting .411, but doesn’t currently have enough plate appearances to qualify as he’s out with an injury and hasn’t played since August 15. He’s pretty close, though; right now he’d need 90 PA to qualify and entering Saturday’s action he’s at 79 PA. LeMahieu could return as soon as Sunday, per this Yahoo article.

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