With the 2019 MLB awards handed out, we're wasting no time in looking 12 months into the future to predict who will be the winners in 2020.
ESPN baseball writer David Schoenfield breaks down the favorites, and Bradford Doolittle looks at some dark horses for next season's Rookie of the Year, Cy Young and MVP awards. Then they both make their way-too-early picks on who will be taking home hardware next year. (Free agents such as Gerrit Cole, Anthony Rendon and Stephen Strasburg were excluded from consideration as it's not clear what league they'll be playing in.)
AL MVP
Favorites: Mike Trout, Angels; Alex Bregman, Astros; Xander Bogaerts, Red Sox
Trout begins every season as the MVP favorite in the American League. He has finished first or second in the voting in seven of his eight seasons -- he fell all the way to fourth in 2017 when he played only 114 games. At age 28 in 2020 and coming off a career-high 45 home runs, there's no reason to expect any decline.