Yankees: DJ LeMahieu wins his first career Silver Slugger Award

DJ LeMahieu had an incredible first season with the Yankees and on Thursday he was rewarded for it with his first career Silver Slugger Award. LeMahieu was the AL second basemen winner and unseated Houston’s Jose Altuve who had won the award the previous five seasons.

There wasn’t a better signing in baseball last offseason than DJ LeMaheiu. Coming into the year everyone wondered where he would fit into the Yankees lineup but he quickly answered those questions and ended up being their most valuable player and top hitter in the lineup.

LeMaheiu was the starting second basemen for the American League and finished the season with a career-high 26 home runs, 197 hits, 102 RBI and a .518 SLG%. He also batted a team-high .327 and posted major league-leading .389 AVG with RISP. DJ was the Yankees most consistent player all season long and carried that over into the postseason where he hit .325 with 3 HR and 7 RBI. He was the easy choice to win the Silver Slugger at second base even though he spent a lot of time at first and third base as well.

https://twitter.com/Yankees/status/1192584679767072768

LeMahieu not only beat out the former AL MVP Altuve to take home the hardware but also  Royal’s All-Star Whit Merrifield. His Yankee teammates C Gary Sanchez and SS Gleyber Torres were also finalists at their respective positions but were edged out by Minnesota’s Mitch Garver and Boston’s Xander Bogaerts.

It was nice to see LeMahieu rightfully recognized for his great season after he surprisingly wasn’t announced as one of the top three finalists for the American League MVP earlier this week. A’s shortstop Marcus Semien got the nod ahead of him along with Angels CF Mike Trout and Houston 3B Alex Bregman who are considered the favorites to win the award.

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The reason why Semien is in the top three has to be because of his 8.1 WAR which was the third-best in the AL behind Bregman and Trout. Most of the writers who vote for the award are obsessed with everyone’s WAR total these days and they just couldn’t ignore how DJ only finished with a 6.0 instead of focusing on which player was actually more valuable to their team in 2019.

Regardless of how the voting played out, LeMahieu’s first season in pinstripes will still go down as one of the best in Yankees history. All season long he was a constant presence and an impact player on both sides of the ball for a team that was absolutely ravaged by injuries.

I don’t think anyone fit the description of most valuable player more than him in 2019, but at least the coaches and managers who vote for and decide the Silver Sluggers got this one right.