The AL and NL Most Valuable Player awards will be announced on Thursday night, capping off award season around Major League Baseball.
While there is some debate as to who deserves the AL honor between Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson and Los Angeles Angels center fielder Mike Trout, there is little question who should be taking home the trophy on the NL side of things.
Despite a disappointing overall season from the Washington Nationals, right fielder Bryce Harper was an absolute beast, taking his offensive game to another level in his age-22 season.
The other two finalists in the NL are Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt and Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto.
Both of those players had terrific seasons, but it would be a shock to see either of them steal a first-place vote from Harper, let alone upset him to win the award.
So where does Harper's performance this past season rank among the most dominant MVP performances of the past 25 years?
The following article will attempt to answer that question.
To clarify, these rankings will not be comparing one MVP season to another but instead comparing how dominant each MVP season was relative to the other candidates around the league that year.
For example, Barry Bonds had better overall numbers in 2003 and 2004 than he did in 1990, but his 1990 season ranks higher on this list because of there being a wider gap between him and the rest of the National League in 1990.
Hopefully that clarifies exactly what we're looking for in putting together these rankings. Now, let's get on with the show.
Note: The section "vote pts" on the following charts represents how many total ballot points each player received on a 14-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 point scale for the 10-player ballot. The number in parenthesis indicates total number of first-place votes.
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