NL MVP Power Rankings: Former Braves teammates highlight loaded top-5

We’re about one-third of the way through the Major League Baseball season, so it’s time to figure out who the frontrunner is for the NL MVP Award.

The National League has not exactly broken the way many fans and experts expected prior to the start of the 2023 season.

The San Diego superteam looks lost, the St. Louis Cardinals are NL Central cellar-dwellers, and the only thing the New York Mets inflated payroll has done is secured them the exact same win-loss record as the Cincinnati Reds.

But, the 2023 season has provided some surprises as well. Nobody expected the Pittsburgh Pirates to be atop the National League Central, and even fewer folks predicted the Arizona Diamondbacks would be ahead of the all the California teams in the NL West.

But some the production we’ve seen from these surprise ball clubs, and others, has been due in part to the superior play of several NL MVP candidates. So who reigns supreme at the moment, and who else in the conversation?

5. NL MVP Power Rankings: Zac Gallen, Arizona Diamondbacks

I’m not one to typically include pitchers among the MVP candidates. Let’s face it, they only take the mound once every five days, and hurlers have their own award called the Cy Young.

But it’s not without precedent that the occasional pitcher will take home both the Cy Young and MVP Awards in the same year. Clayton Kershaw did just that back in 2014.

Now, Zac Gallen is not having that same type of year, but he should still be on the peripheral of the NL MVP conversation at the moment. While Marcus Stroman of the Chicago Cubs leads the NL in ERA, Gallen has fewer walks and more strikeouts.

Zac Gallen is 7-2 with a 3.09 ERA. That earned run average will have to come down in order for Gallen to receive more love from the voters, but his team’s success can’t be ignored. Gallen’s D-Backs are leading the way in the NL West, and whether or not you agree, a team’s win-loss record factors into the equation.