Padres OF Jurickson Profar is a legitimate MVP candidate

It's been a roller coaster of a season for the San Diego Padres so far. Sitting in second of the NL West six and a half games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Padres are coming off a very successful six-game away stretch. They went 4-2 against the Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago Cubs, who could both be competing with the Padres for a wild-card spot when the time comes.

There have been a lot of key performances that have put San Diego in a spot to still be competitive now, more than a month into the season, but none more than outfielder Jurickson Profar. Offensively he leads the Padres in batting average (.328), on-base percentage (.409), slugging percentage (.522), on-base plus slugging percentage (.931), hits (44), runs batted in (27) and is tied for second in home runs (6).

It's not often you see one single player lead their team in so many major offensive statistics, but to also do it on a roster that includes Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts makes it even more impressive. It's not as if Profar is doing this in limited time, either, as he has appeared in all 40 games this season.

Those numbers clearly make him the team MVP for the Padres, but where does he fit within the rest of the National League? Per FanGraphs, he ranks seventh in BA, fifth in OBP, ninth in SLG, sixth in OPS, sixth in RBI, seventh in hits, 10th in WAR (1.6) and eighth in strikeout percentage (13.6). That's a resume befitting of a superstar much less someone who's on just a one-year $1 million contract.

It hasn't been just Padres fans who have noticed this late-career breakout performance. Ben Verlander of Fox Sports had Profar as one of the top three outfielders for the month of April accompanied by Kyle Tucker and Juan Soto. Of course, Profar was brought in to be the replacement for Soto in left field and has done a tremendous job at just a fraction of Soto's $31 million contract.

When it comes down to MVP voting in the NL there will always be the big names like Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani and Ronald Acuna Jr., but Profar has shown through his performance on the field that he deserves to be mentioned just as much.