A typical baseball schedule is merciless — six weeks of spring training followed by six months of games, with few days off and many thousands of air miles. The advantage for younger players shows up in the list of Most Valuable Player Award winners; it has been 13 years since anyone started a season in his 30s and won the M.V.P.

That was Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees, in 2007 — and he, of course, used performance-enhancing drugs at various points in his career. The last player to do it without ties to steroids was Jeff Kent of the San Francisco Giants, two decades ago.

This pandemic season, as you may have noticed, is far different from any other. With just 60 games in the regular season, and travel limited to divisional regions, it should theoretically be easier for older players to stand out. Sure enough, some leading contenders for the M.V.P. Awards are out of their 20s: The Atlanta Braves’ Freddie Freeman was 30 on opening day in late July, and the Chicago White Sox’ Jose Abreu was 33.

Picking the winners for such a small sample of games will be tricky for voting members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. (The New York Times does not participate in awards voting.) But as the season enters its final days, this is how the leaders look from here, with all statistics through Tuesday.

Source: New York Times

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