Forget the preseason talk about Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani winning the award. Willson Contreras has earned his spot in the conversation, sitting at fourth in the latest AL MVP poll according to MLB.com Red Sox. This is not a fluke or a lucky break. It is the result of a historic season where the Red Sox first baseman has become the engine driving Boston back to the playoffs.
Think back to March when no one expected the landscape to shift this much. A total of 37 MLB.com experts cast votes, and Contreras secured 49 total points to take the fourth rank. Yordan Alvarez still leads the pack with 181 points, but the gap is narrowing. Contreras is the only player on this list who carries his entire team on his back while hitting balls that defy physics.
The Numbers That Change Everything
The stats tell a story that goes beyond simple home runs. Contreras is tied with Pete Crow-Armstrong at a 156 wRC+ this season, which is the second-best mark in the Majors behind only Alvarez. He has hit a career-high 26 home runs so far. Last Friday, his 452-foot blast over the Green Monster served as merely one indicator of his exceptional performance at the plate.
According to MLB.com Red Sox, that specific hit was the sixth hardest-hit homer in all of MLB this season. The ball left the bat at an exit velocity of 116 mph. The sole other occasion Contreras struck a ball with such force occurred back in May 2022. The sheer power he brings to the lineup is what makes him a legitimate MVP candidate.
How It Feels to Hit Like That
When a player connects with that kind of force, the world seems to disappear. Contreras described the feeling perfectly after the game. He knew he made solid contact, but the speed of the ball was a shock even to him.
“I knew I hit it well, and I knew I hit it hard, but I wasn’t expecting it to be at 116 [mph] and 30 [degree launch angle],” said Contreras. He admitted he thought he hit it at 110 mph when he first saw it, but the data told a different story. That level of power is rare, and doing it consistently is what separates good players from great ones.
Contreras knows he has found something special that he wants to keep. “That’s one of those feelings that you want to get back, and it happens once in a while, but I enjoyed it as much as I could,” he noted. With the season winding down, the Red Sox need him to keep feeling that lightness. If he can maintain this pace, the fourth-place ranking might just be the start of a bigger climb.
