NL MVP for Dodgers slugger, edging Christian Yelich

It was a friendly non-rivalry turned into what looked like a relatively contrived ad campaign. After all, in baseball, there are no one-on-one matchups between position players, and so Major League Baseball’s decision to pit Cody Bellinger against Christian Yelich, to “run it back,” as the two photogenic lefty sluggers put it, seemed forced, at best.

Except it worked.

Bellinger and Yelich dominated the National League landscape in 2019, pushing themselves and their Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers to greater heights, more than justifying the 60-second ad and the decision to mic the two up for an inning of the All-Star Game in July.

Belli vs. Yeli was exquisite theater all summer, their credentials as the NL’s top player excellent fodder for parlor arguments or stathead parsing.

And then it ended, so abruptly, when Yelich fractured a kneecap on Sept. 10, leaving Bellinger to succinctly distill the feelings of many.

“It definitely sucks,” he said.

So the National League Most Valuable Player award went from a two-man epic to Bellinger’s to lose. And on Thursday night, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America confirmed his excellence and staying power.