DEBATE: The 2026 Red Sox AWARDS: MVP, Biggest Surprise, Biggest Disappointment & MORE

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[upbeat music] Who was the Red Sox MVP? Biggest surprise? Biggest disappointment? It's time to hand out the Locked On Red Sox 2026 season awards. [upbeat music] You are Locked On Red Sox, your daily Boston Red Sox podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your team every day. What's up, folks? Welcome into Locked On Red Sox, your daily Boston Red Sox podcast. I'm your host, Gabby Maljanian, and before I get started, today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDuel Rewards Club. Every week, check the FanDuel app to see what's waiting for you. Happy Monday. Welcome in to another episode of the show. I know it's probably disappointing that it's Monday, so I figured I would make today a little bit more bearable by doing a little bit of a fun episode. I've dwelled a lot on the Red Sox disappointing wild card exit, what went well in the 2026 season, what they need to do to make 2027 even better. So today, I'm gonna be giving out my 2026 season awards, things like the moments that defined the season, biggest disappointments this year, biggest surprises, biggest apologies owed, MVP, breakout player, most underrated, you name it. Lots of different categories to discuss, and I already know that there's probably gonna be some disagreements on this, which is what makes the entire exercise super fun. I'm super excited about this, but to start, I'm gonna start with MVP. Most valuable player on the Boston Red Sox in 2026. This was a player who just always contributed constantly and was a steady presence in the Red Sox lineup. Willson Contreras, to me it's not really that particularly close either. Over 130 games, he hit 275, with a 386 on base percentage, 516 slugging, and 901 OPS, with 27 homers, 81 RBIs, 59 walks, and 4.6 wins above replacement. That is actually a monster season, and for a team that wasn't expected to have anybody that hit more than 20 home runs, for him to far surpass that and be an all-star and play good defense at first base, he was so important to this team. MVP means more to me than just the stats and who has the prettiest page on baseball reference with all the numbers you plug in. But if you think about what the season really looked like between Alex Cora and some of the coaches getting fired, the team being 10 and 17, eventually being 32 and 46, injuries everywhere, Roman gone, Crochet gone, constant change, feeling like the season is a lost cause, but Willson Contreras definitely became one of the constants. By the time the season ended, he was one of the guys standing in front of reporters saying, "We need experience. We need to trust players. Data can't do everything." And then Breslow and Tracy spent more than two hours talking with him before everybody left. That tells me everything about how important he became to this team. So he's clearly my MVP, 'cause not only did he perform consistently on the field, but also the leader that he became off the field was so integral to this team as well. Not to mention the fact that he's a veteran and this is a young team overall. Him