Tampa Bay Rays: Brandon Lowe is an MVP candidate

Tampa Bay Rays infielder Brandon Lowe is quietly putting together one of the top offensive performances of the 2020 season.

There is still plenty of baseball left to be played in 2020, and we’ve already seen multiple times this year that playing baseball tomorrow is not guaranteed, but Tampa Bay Rays infielder Brandon Lowe has put his name in the very early discussion for American League MVP honors.

As of Monday morning, Brandon Lowe leads all qualified American League hitters with a 1.6 Wins Above Replacement, per FanGraphs. Los Angeles Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon, who sits in second place on this list, is a bit behind at 1.2 fWAR through one-third of the season.

He’s been hot for the surging Tampa Bay Rays who are 8-2 over their last 10 games and quickly catching up with the ailing New York Yankees.

Lowe, a former standout at Nansemond River High School in Suffolk, VA and the University of Maryland, was an All-Star as a rookie last season and finished third in AL Rookie of the Year voting, despite playing in just 82 games.

His rookie season came to an early close after suffering a quad injury while rehabbing a bone bruise in July.

The Rays rookie was one of the leading offensive performers for Tampa Bay before going down to injury. He finished his debut campaign with a .270/.336/.514 slash line, 17 home runs, 17 doubles, and 51 runs driven in.

Lowe played in 46 games at the big league level back in 2018 and showed the Rays enough to earn himself a six-year/$24 million contract, with the potential to earn as much as $49 million over the next six seasons.

If the Tampa Bay Rays believe in a rookie enough to hand out that kind of money, we all might want to pay attention.

Through 22 games this season, Lowe is hitting .338 with a .404 on-base percentage, .738 slugging percentage, seven home runs, seven doubles, two triples, 20 runs driven in, and a 205 wRC+. Every single one of those numbers ranks among the Top 10 in the American League, with his wRC+ and 1.6 fWAR leading the way.

Lowe went 1-3 with a walk and run scored on Sunday, ending a streak of four-straight games with a home run. It was the first time a Rays hitter has homered in four-straight games since Evan Longoria did so in 2016.

After hitting his seventh home run of the season, Brandon Lowe told reporters, “I feel good. Just doing my homework on the pitchers, really. The intent is to hit the ball hard. More base hits come the higher the exit velo is off the bat. I want to hit the ball hard. I want to do damage.”

He certainly is hitting the ball hard. His current barrel rate of 20.7% ranks among the top 5% of hitters in baseball and his average launch angle of 21.9 degrees and exit velocity 90.8 mph are both well-above league average.

Maybe it’s time for more people to start paying attention to Tampa Bay Rays infielder Brandon Lowe. You just might be watching someone who ends up in the discussion for high honors come the end of the 2020 season.