Chicago Cubs: Ranking the team’s top five MVP candidates

As with any team, identifying the Chicago Cubs most valuable player is never an easy endeavor. This year, though, it’s more straightforward than usual.

Bestowing such lofty praise on any one player is an imperfect science. That science is built on a foundation of subjectivity and opinion. The mission becomes increasingly complicated in today’s statistics-heavy environment. What used to be measured in simple terms of wins, losses and the ubiquitous “eye-test” is now measured by advanced analytics and detailed splits. Simply put, picking a Chicago Cubs most valuable player is not easy.

Since this is such a monumental task, this article won’t try to identify the single most valuable player. Instead, it builds the case for and ranks the five  most deserving candidates for Cubs’ first -half MVP.

The ground rules are simple. Most valuable player does not necessarily mean best player. It may not even mean most productive player. This exercise will identify the Cubs who have shown that their performance is the most relevant to wins and losses.

Let’s get to it.