Zack Cozart is one of those major leaguers you can’t hate. He grinds. He sacrifices his body for the game (which is probably a bit insane when you think about it. But damn if it ain’t entertaining!). He’s not one of the guys you expect to be a quarter season MVP. But here we are, at the quarter turn, and Zack is pretty much the only guy, outside of rookie strikeout-homerun-strikeout-strikeout sensation, Adam Duvall, to accomplish anything worthy of major league status (unless we’re counting JJ Hoover’s amazing ability to give up homeruns. He’d make a great homerun derby pitcher).
I’m not taking anything away from Cozart’s season, but the fact that he’s the best we’ve got thus far makes be reach for a plastic funnel, a few gallons of cheap beer, and as much Xanax as I can swallow before the men in the white coats come to take me away.
Zack Cozart is your quarter-season MVP! Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here.
If, as this season started, you had to guess who might be the Reds MVP at the quarter turn, the first choice would have been obvious: Joey Votto. After that, you might have said Devin Mesoraco, Jay Bruce, or maybe even Homer Bailey. If Homer had come back from off-season surgery early, who knows how many no-hitters he’d have tossed or lions he’d have strangled to death with his bare hands by now?
If I’d have told you that, as the Reds rounded first base on the 2016 season, Zack Cozart would be the MVP, you might not have believed me. But stranger things have happened. This season, stranger things have happened on a regular basis, in fact, especially when the bullpen takes the mound.
Sure, claiming the title of MVP on one of the worst teams in the majors is a bit like winning the title of Miss Congeniality at an inbred retirement community, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t warranted taking the throne thus far.