April performances often indicate who is and is not an MVP candidate

Troy Tulowitzki leads the NL in OPS, a good sign he'll be in the running for the NL MVP award all season.

Barry Gutierrez/AP

The caveat here is that I'm using an unadjusted stat, taking a sample that covers the majority of the Steroid Era and comparing it to the current hitting environment, in which scoring has decreased significantly relative to the bulk of my sample. Still, the basic point stands: While few Most Valuable Players do their best work in April, they are far more often among April's hottest hitters than they are not. Thus a sampling of April's hottest hitters, such as Award Watch's top five MVP candidates, has a good chance of capturing several of the top finalists for the award, even if it's impossible to predict the actual winner that early in the season.