What better time than the World Games break to examine who could win the 2023 Jim Brown PLL MVP award.
The history of the award tells you that anyone can win. Over four years we have seen three different positions win the award and no one has won it twice.
| Year | Player | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Matt Rambo | Attack |
| 2020 | Zed Williams | Attack |
| 2021 | Blaze Riorden | Goalie |
| 2022 | Trevor Baptiste | Faceoff |
2023 PLL MVP Frontrunners
Attack – Ryder Garnsey
Garnsey leads the league in points (16), goals (14), and is second in shot percentage (60.9%). He’s also a human highlight reel often giving us SportsCenter type goals. If he can keep up his current pace he’s definitely going to be finalist.
Midfield – Connor Kelly
Kelly is the leading midfield scorer (14 points) on the back of his monster performance in week three where he scored 9 points with 3 two-pointers. His range is electric and while his performance hasn’t been consistently outrageous, we feel that he’s just heating up.
FOS – Trevor Baptiste
At 74.7% Baptiste is making professionals look like amateurs at the stripe. He’s always in the MVP conversation, but we’ll see if Big Lacrosse conspires against him. It’s bad for business to have a FOS be the face of the league, but he deserves it.
DM/LSM – Mike Messenger
A sneaky pick Messenger is barely a DM. Yes, he’s listed as one on the game day roster, he plays excellent 1v1 defense, but he’s a true two-way midfielder. Now that he’s getting more time on offense he’s proving he can score against any short stick and get out of his way when he’s headed downhill.
Ignore D1 coaching news and pay attention to @PLLChrome midfielder Mike Messenger bullying the Cannons defense. Messenger scored three goals all of which were downhill or sweeping left-right. Soudan gave him extended shifts on O and it paid off immediately. Not just a dmid. pic.twitter.com/ZfNtbifIeE
— Nick Zoroya (@NicholasZoroya) June 19, 2023
Defense – Gavin Adler
The lone rookie on the list has been an absolute eraser on defense. The Atlas are able to put him against anyone and know that the defense is in good hands. He leads the league in caused turnovers (6) and we’re sure more are to come.
Most rookies have their "Welcome to the League" moment, but this one is different…
— TLN 🥍 (@LacrosseNetwork) June 15, 2023
The 2023 No. 1 overall pick gave a pair of former league MVPs — Zed Williams and Matt Rambo — a "Hi, I'm Gavin Adler" moment 📈📈@PremierLacrosse | @PLLAtlas pic.twitter.com/mK88iH08tS
Goalie – Blaze Riorden
The 2021 PLL MVP is at it again, boasting a league leading 64.6 save percentage and a league low 31 scores against. Blaze Riordern = Brick Wall. If the Chaos finish in the top half of the league, you know it’s because of Blaze’s performance.
Since '19, goalies have saved 57.0% of unassisted shots and 48.8% of assisted shots.
— Joe Keegan (@joekeegs) June 19, 2023
Blaze Riorden stopped 66.7% of the Archers' assisted shots in Columbus. Insane.
