In last season's All-Star Game in Cleveland, Shane Bieber won the MVP in front of the hometown crowd by simply striking out Willson Contreras, Ketel Marte and Ronald Acuna Jr. in the fifth inning. It was a small sample size, but in a game where the winning American League team didn't have any particularly outstanding hitter—none of them reached base, scored a run or drove a runner in more than once—it was a deserved honor for the only AL starter to strike out the side.
That logic also may end up applying to this year's AL MVP race.