If the Angels make the postseason and Mike Trout isn’t the MVP, I will internet-yell at the people responsible

Before we get too deep into this, I’m aware of how good Jose Altuve is. He will probably win the MVP. He’ll probably deserve it. He leads American League hitters in WAR, according to Baseball-Reference. He leads AL hitters in WAR, according to FanGraphs. If you’re telling me that I need to appreciate Altuve more, I take offense to that. I’ve been on this bandwagon for years, and he’s long been one of my favorite players to watch.

But the Angels are a story. They’re three games over .500, and they have a half-game lead in the second wild-card race. You all laughed at me when I called the Angels sneaky almost-maybe contenders before the season, just like you laughed at me when I said that Nelson Cruz was a horrible idea for the Mariners, but forget that last part. The Angels are relevant, and they just might make the postseason.

If they make the postseason, they’ll probably make it by a game or two.

Say, do you know who is probably worth an extra win or two over the average player? Mike Trout, who has been the best player in baseball for several years running. If the Angels squeak into the postseason by a game, that means they probably wouldn’t have if they had replaced him with any outfielder other than maybe Aaron Judge, George Springer, or Mookie Betts. Which sounds pretty valuable to me. Perhaps it’s a good way to describe the most valuable player, even if he spent more than a month on the DL.

I’m playing the devil’s advocate here because I don’t really believe in the idea that a player needs to be on a contending team to be considered for MVP. I don’t like giving a player bonus points for his team barely making the postseason, and I’m not into diminishing the accomplishments of a player whose team finished 10 games up or 10 games back.

Some voters are very much into this idea, though. You can tell by Trout’s MVP finishes:

In two of those seasons*, Trout was clearly the best player in the league, but he lost because enough voters couldn’t handle the fact that he didn’t personally kick open the door to the postseason and drag the rest of his teammates through by their nostrils.

* I won’t make fun of voters too much for Miguel Cabrera’s Triple Crown season because that was an obvious historical outlier.

Here we are, and Trout is kicking on the door to the postseason, trying to break it down, with his fingers firmly shoved in his teammates’ nostrils. Metaphorically. If he does it, if the Angels make the Wild Card Game, there will be no argument: The Angels wouldn’t have been anywhere close to the postseason without Trout.

Now flip the argument to the leading contender, Altuve. The Astros are 12 games ahead of the Angels, who are in second place. If they had replaced him with, say, Pete Kozma, they would still have a comfortable first-place lead. When the Astros make the postseason, they’ll have done so with the help of one of the best players in baseball, but he wasn’t what pushed them over the top. I mean, if you want to do this meme style ...

Maybe if Altuve weren’t this good, the Astros wouldn’t have been comfortable with acquiring only Francisco Liriano at the trade deadline. Seems like he might have indirectly hurt the team’s ability to chase a World Series championship because he was so productive. Makes you think.

OK, it really doesn’t make you think, and it’s a supremely dumb argument, but so is the argument that Trout wasn’t the MVP in 2012 because Ervin Santana had an off year. That he wasn’t the MVP in 2015 because Jered Weaver lost his fastball. You say that the goal of every team in baseball is to win the World Series, and I counter that the goal of every team in baseball is to win baseball games. And no player has helped his team do that more than Trout in every season since 2012.

Except this year, when Altuve is probably a little more valuable because he’s played more.

Altuve is probably the MVP, even though we have more than a month to go in the season, and my brain is absolutely OK with that. Dude’s good. The voters will probably get it right, and this is the only hot MVP take that I’ll get to have.

But what I want is some consistency. I want there to be some logic applied to both ends of the silliest MVP criteria. If Trout wins the 2017 MVP because of the same retroactive reasoning that’s kept him in second place in some years, that would be extremely amusing to me, and I wouldn’t complain at all. He’s owed a couple.

For now, though, this is all premature. The statistical case for Trout isn’t quite there because of the time he missed, and the emotional case for him isn’t set until we know if the Angels are still going to be contending when the deadline for submitting ballots comes.

Still, this is the purest test for the must-be-on-a-contender zealots. Without Trout, the Angels don’t have a shot at the postseason. Without Altuve, the Astros are still in pretty good shape. If you’re limiting the definition of valuable to include only players on teams with a postseason chance, your choice is clear. Even if you’re still wrong.

Now that we’ve settled that, I would like to congratulate Aaron Judge on his MVP award. It’s an annual tradition around these parts for me to write an early article about an awards race without mentioning the player who actually wins it, so you’re welcome, Yankees fans. You’re absolutely welcome.