Washington Nationals: Rendon Wins NL Comeback Player Of Year

This afternoon, Washington Nationals third baseman Anthony Rendon won the NL Comeback Player Of The Year Award

The Washington Nationals had another player win a major award this afternoon. Third baseman Anthony Rendon was named the National League Comeback Player of the Year by Major League Baseball. On the American League side, the winner was Boston Red Sox pitcher and AL Cy Young award winner Rick Porcello.

With this award, Rendon becomes the second Washington Nationals player to take home the Comeback Player of the Year award. Back in 2007, first baseman Dmitri Young won the award when he hit 13 home runs and drove in 44 RBI’s in 136 games in a year where he made the NL All-Star team.

After playing in only 80 games in 2015 because of injuries, Rendon stayed healthy for the entire year in 2016 and put up great numbers. He had a slash line of .270/.348/.450 with 20 home runs and 85 RBI’s in 156 games. Rendon set a career-high for most RBI’s in a season and was one home run shy of his 2014 total (21).

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During the second half of this past season, Rendon was one of the best players in the National League. He hit .291 with 11 home runs and 52 RBI’s after the All-Star Break. Over that span, he had the fifth most RBI’s in the National League and had 12 more than any other player on the Nats (center fielder Trea Turner had 40).

Amongst all third basemen in the NL, Rendon had the most doubles (38), was fifth in on-base percentage, sixth in slugging percentage, tied for sixth in home runs, sixth in RBI’s, and seventh in batting average.

If you go by WAR, Rendon was second on the Nats (4.1) behind only Daniel Murphy’s 4.6, according to Baseball Reference.

When Murphy missed most of September due to injury, Rendon stepped up in the cleanup spot as he had 23 RBI’s over 26 games, which was the highest total of any player in the NL. Even though Rendon was only 3-for-20 with a home run and four RBI’s in the NLDS against the Dodgers, that shouldn’t take away from the strong regular season that he had.

Next: Nats Offseason Aggression Needs Checks

While Rendon didn’t finish in the top 5 in MVP voting like he did in 2014, he re-established the fact that when he’s healthy, he is one of the best third basemen in the National League.

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