Atlanta's Freddie Freeman, White Sox's Jose Abreu win MVP honours

Atlanta first baseman Freddie Freeman easily won the NL MVP award Thursday, topping off a trying year that saw him become so ill with COVID-19 he prayed "please don't take me."

Chicago White Sox slugger Jose Abreu earned the AL MVP, a reward for powering his team back into the playoffs for the first time since 2008.

Freeman got 28 of the 30 first-place ballots in voting by members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts got the other two firsts to finish second and San Diego third baseman Manny Machado was third.

Three weeks before the delayed opening day in late July, Freeman's body temperature spiked at 104.5 degrees and he lost his sense of taste and smell. At one point, he recalled, he said a little prayer because "I wasn't ready."

"I got off to such a slow start," Freeman said on the MLB Network after Dale Murphy, a two-time NL MVP Atlanta, announced the winner. "I just didn't know when I would get my legs back."

The 31-year-old star bounced back in a big way, batting .341 with 13 home runs and 53 RBIs while playing all 60 games. A powerful lefty batter with the ability to spray the ball all over the field, he led the majors in hitting 23 doubles and scoring 51 runs.

Boosted by the four-time All-Star, Atlanta won the NL East and came within one win of reaching the World Series for the first time since 1999.

Freeman is the sixth different player in Atlanta franchise history to be the NL MVP. Chipper Jones most recently took the honour in 1999 — Freeman wears a tattered Atlanta T-shirt under his uniform that was passed down to him from Jones.

Betts was bidding to join Frank Robinson as the only players to win the MVP in both leagues. The 28-year-old outfielder earned the AL honour in 2018 while leading Boston to the World Series title.

Traded by the Red Sox to Los Angeles early this year, Betts hit .292 with 16 homers and 39 RBIs and was the catalyst in the Dodgers' run to their first championship since 1988.

Machado hit .304 with 16 homers and 47 RBIs as San Diego made its first playoff appearance since 2006.

Abreu led the majors with 60 RBIs and 148 total bases, and topped the AL with 76 hits and a .617 slugging percentage. He played in all 60 games during the virus-shortened season as Chicago claimed a wild-card spot.

"Ultimate run producer," Freeman praised.

Surrounded by family members, Abreu put his head down for a minute after hearing he'd won and teared up.

"That was a very special moment," he said through a translator.

The 33-year-old Abreu batted .317 with 19 home runs, connecting six times in a three-game series against the Cubs in late August. That barrage of longballs at Wrigley Field was part of his 22-game hitting streak, the longest in the majors this year.

Abreu was the 2014 AL Rookie of the Year and is a three-time All-Star. He became the fourth different White Sox player to win the AL MVP, joining Frank Thomas (1993-94), Dick Allen (1972) and Nellie Fox (1959).

Abreu was the third Cuban-born player to be an MVP, along with Jose Canseco and Zoilo Versalles.

Smooth around the bag, Abreu ended an MVP drought for AL first basemen. None had won the award since Justin Morneau for Minnesota in 2006; Cincinnati first baseman Joey Votto won the NL MVP in 2010.

AL Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber of Cleveland was fourth and Angels outfielder Mike Trout was fifth. A three-time AL MVP, Trout had finished in the top four every season since he was AL Rookie of the Year in 2012.

Landis' likeness removed from trophy

This will be the first time in more than 75 years the MVP trophies don't carry the name and likeness of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, baseball's first commissioner.

In an Associated Press story in late June, former MVPs Barry Larkin, Terry Pendleton and Mike Schmidt said they favoured pulling Landis' name off future plaques because of concerns over his handling of Black players.

Landis became commissioner in 1920 and no Blacks played in the majors through his reign that ended when he died in 1944. Jackie Robinson broke baseball's colour barrier in 1947.

Landis' legacy is "always a complicated story" that includes "documented racism," official MLB historian John Thorn has said.

In 1931, Landis gave the BBWAA control of picking and presenting the MVPs. During the 1944 World Series, the group decided to add Landis' name to the plaque. His name had appeared on all MVP plaques since then and was featured more prominently than the actual winners of the Kenesaw Mountain Landis Memorial Baseball Award.