Occasionally, I have to get on my soapbox. The MVP award means different things to different people. To some, it means voting for the best player in the league. For others, it means voting for the best player that also happens to be on the best team. In the National League, the best player also happens to play for the best team. Kris Bryant should be the no-brainer selection. Of course, no-brainer selections have gone awry. The American League is where all the intrigue lies.

Wins above replacement (WAR) may not be the end all be all of human existence, but it gives us a pretty good idea of who really is the best overall player in the game. If we track the American League standings we find four players that appear to be in the MVP running with one month remaining.

• Mike Trout: 9.0
• Mookie Betts: 7.7
• Jose Altuve: 7.3
• Josh Donaldson: 6.9

Mike Trout has led the league in WAR four seasons in a row and barring something out of this world, he’ll do it again in 2016. Somehow, he has come away with only MVP award during that time. It’s completely nuts for the best player in the league not to win the MVP award. Yet, you get the feeling he won’t win again because he plays for a last place team. That’s certainly not his fault.

If you read one thing…

September baseball is a hard time for the fantasy baseball player. Rosters expand to up to 40 players and some teams starting sitting their regulars because they are out of the playoff chase. At the same time, fantasy players are beginning to go into their own version of the playoffs. Therefore, fantasy players that may have dominated the regular season may find themselves in serious trouble during the playoffs.

This is high time to monitor your roster to make sure at least most of your players are playing meaningful baseball in September. A strategic waiver claim or two could really the boost you need to make it through your playoff chase. That could be a young player on a struggling team or it could be a lesser veteran that will at least be guaranteed to get you key plate appearance or innings down the stretch.

We kind of expected…

The Boston Red Sox continued their onslaught of pitching as they beat the Athletics 16-2. The hottest guy on the Red Sox might actually be Hanley Ramirez. He had three more RBI to get up to 87 on the season. We originally thought he would just get to 90 RBI on the season, but now it looks like he will get to 100 RBI. Pablo Sandoval has been a huge disappointment, but Ramirez has obviously redeemed himself.

We didn’t expect…

It’s hard to consider any series at the beginning of September absolutely crucial, but the Cardinals are opening up with the Reds this weekend and ended up losing the opener 3-2. The Reds are obviously playing spoiler and it worked on Friday night. They even beat the Cardinals without star first baseman Joey Votto.

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