The Milwaukee Brewers had three finalists up for Silver Slugger awards as the best hitter at their respective positions this year, but when the awards were announced on Thursday, they were shut out.
It wasn’t especially surprising, when considering the players that Milwaukee’s three finalists were up against. The first of the Brewers’ finalists was second baseman Brice Turang, who leveled up offensively to the point that he won the National League Player of the Month award for August. He finished the season with career highs across the board, and hit .288/.359/.435 for a 121 OPS+. That was probably enough to beat out one of the other finalists, Chicago’s Nico Hoerner, but it wasn’t enough to compete with Arizona superstar Ketel Marte, who hit .283/.376/.517 (145 OPS+) with 28 homers in just 126 games this season.
William Contreras was also a finalist, and he came into this season having won this award twice in a row. But Contreras’ well-publicized issues with a fractured finger had him off to a slow start, and while his overall numbers were still good enough to make him a Silver Slugger finalist (.260/.355/.399, 111 OPS+, 17 HR, 28 2B), he lagged behind the other two in this category. The Dodgers’ Will Smith battled injuries and played in only 110 games, but he hit .296/.404/.497 in those 110 games and matched Contreras’ home run total despite playing 40 fewer games. But the award went not to Smith but to Colorado’s Hunter Goodman, who was a bright spot in a dismal season. Goodman, just 25 and in his first full season, hit .278/.323/.520 and led the Rockies with 31 homers and made his first All-Star Game.
The Brewers’ last finalist was Christian Yelich, in the designated hitter category. Yelich had a solid campaign and posted a 121 OPS+ while hitting more homers (29) than he’d hit in a season since 2019. But Yelich had no shot in this category: his competition were two of the top MVP contenders in the NL, Kyle Schwarber and Shohei Ohtani. Schwarber led the NL with 56 homers and the majors with 132 RBI, and, as usual, walked over 100 times. But even Schwarber didn’t win, as the presumptive MVP, Ohtani, took this one: he led the NL in slugging (.622), OPS (1.014), and OPS+ (179), and he led the majors in runs scored (146) and total bases (380), a number he arrived at by whacking 55 homers and 9 triples.
The full list of winners is below (winners are in bold, other finalists listed alongside):
Catcher: Hunter Goodman, COL; William Contreras, MIL; Will Smith, LAD
First Base: Pete Alonso, NYM; Freddie Freeman, LAD; Matt Olson, ATL
Second Base: Ketel Marte, ARI; Nico Hoerner, CHC; Brice Turang, MIL
Third Base: Manny Machado, SDP; Matt Chapman, SFG; Max Muncy, LAD; Austin Riley, ATL
Shortstop: Geraldo Perdomo, ARI; Francisco Lindor, NYM; Trea Turner, PHI
Outfield: Juan Soto, NYM; Corbin Carroll, ARI; Kyle Tucker, CHC; Pete Crow-Armstrong, CHC; Kyle Stowers, MIA; James Wood, WSN
Designated Hitter: Shohei Ohtani, LAD; Kyle Schwarber, PHI; Christian Yelich, MIL
Utility: Alec Burleson, STL; Jake Cronenworth, SDP; Brendan Donovan, STL
Team: Los Angeles Dodgers; Arizona Diamondbacks; Chicago Cubs
