Daniel Murphy energized the New York Mets in the playoffs last season after he became the first player in MLB history to hit a home run in six consecutive postseason games, and now with the Nationals, he’s turned himself into a force in the regular season as well.

While Murphy batted .281/.322/.449 with 14 homers and 73 RBI’s in 130 regular season games for the Mets in 2015, his 2016 season is way different than this particular one.

Murphy is currently second in the Majors in batting average, batting .355, trailing only Jose Altuve of the Houston Astros. Murphy has already surpassed his career highs in home runs, and tied his career high in RBI’s today with two in a loss to the San Diego Padres.

Overall on the year, Murphy is batting .355/.392/.620 with 19 homers and 73 RBI’s. With those numbers, Murphy is projected to hit 31 home runs with 119 RBI’s, while also setting his career hits with 208.

Murphy is currently having a better year than his teammate and 2015 National League MVP Bryce Harper, but according to Bovada’s odds for National League MVP, you wouldn’t know.

Bovada currently lists Kris Bryant of the Chicago Cubs as the favorite to win MVP, followed by Nolan Arenado, Harper, Clayton Kershaw, Anthony Rizzo, and then Daniel Murphy. This means that Murphy is currently not a top five favorite for the award despite his MVP level numbers.

Murphy was without a doubt the Nationals most valuable player the first half of the season. With Bryce Harper struggling this year when the count is in his favor, Murphy has been able to take away the attention from Harper due to the Nationals being 58-41 on the year.

Harper believes that Murphy is the MVP of the National League himself, as well:

“Having Murph, he is a wizard for us,’’ Harper said at the 2016 All-Star interview session.“To watch him every single day, his routine, the mentality that he has in every at-bat. He’s unbelievable. I look forward to what he has in store for us for the second half and if he can do anything that he did in the first half, he’s the MVP in my mind.’’

“Both of us talk about each other so we can bounce things off of each other and that is great,’’ Harper said. “Him hitting three, me hitting four or me hitting three and him hitting four, it really doesn’t matter. It’s unbelievable. He just adds so much impact to our whole team, I mean he’s tackling the ball at second base, making plays, it’s a lot of fun.’’

While you can make the case for Kris Bryant or Anthony Rizzo for MVP, it’s important to remember that Daniel Murphy should be apart of your debate, and should making the voting for MVP hard because ‘Murph’ is having one helluva year.

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