NEW YORK — Boston Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts and the Milwaukee Brewers' Christian Yelich were near-unanimous choices Thursday as Major League Baseball's Most Valuable Players of 2018.

For Betts, the American League award capped a magical year that saw Boston win a franchise-record 108 regular-season games before beating the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series to claim a fourth title in 15 seasons.

Betts, in his fourth full season, led the major leagues with a .346 batting average, 129 runs and a .640 slugging percentage, along with 47 doubles, 32 home runs and 30 stolen bases.

He's the first Red Sox player to lead the majors in both batting average and slugging since legendary Ted Williams in 1957. He reached base at least four times in 20 games, leading the major leagues.

Defensively, the three-time Gold Glove Award winner had five outfield assists and tied for fourth among all players with 20 defensive runs saved.

Betts received 28 of 30 first-place votes in balloting of the Baseball Writers Association of America, finishing ahead of Los Angeles Angels star Mike Trout — the 2014 and 2016 AL MVP — and Cleveland's Jose Ramirez.

Yelich, who led the Brewers to a National League-leading 96 regular season wins and a return to the NL championship series for the first time since 2011, received 29 of 30 first-place votes to beat out Chicago Cubs second baseman Javier Baez and Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado for the award.

Yelich, whose season ended with Milwaukee's loss to the Los Angeles dodgers in the NLCS, had already won Major League Baseball's Hank Aaron Award as the top hitter in the National League. His arrival in a trade with the Marlins fueled Milwaukee's rise to the NL Central title.

His .770 slugging percentage after the All-Star break was baseball's best in 14 years and 145 points better than the next closest hitter, National League Rookie of the Year Award winner Ronald Acuna Jr. of the Braves.

With his average of .326, Yelich became the first Brewers player to win a batting title, and he was just two home runs and one RBI short of winning the first NL triple crown in 81 years. Yelich became just the fifth player to hit for the cycle twice in the same season.

Manfred gets 5-year contract

extension as MLB boss

Major League Baseball owners unanimously voted Thursday to extend commissioner Rob Manfred's contract for five years through the 2024 season, the same day the league announced a television contract extension.

Bill DeWitt, chairman of the St. Louis Cardinals and MLB's finance committee, announced Manfred's extension at a meeting of club owners in Atlanta.

Manfred replaced Bud Selig as the major league commissioner in January 2015 after a prior stint as MLB chief operating officer. He first joined the league in 1998 as a vice president for labor relations and economics.

Manfred, 60, reached a deal with the players union for a five-year collective bargaining agreement through 2021, the sport having gone without a labor shutdown since a stalemate that wiped out the 1994 World Series and shortened the 1995 campaign.

Manfred has pushed for global expansion of the sport and began study of the potential for adding new teams.

The Tampa Bay Rays played a 2016 exhibition game in Cuba, the first major league appearance on the Communist island nation since 1999, and MLB played regular-season games in Mexico and Puerto Rico this past season.

Next June, the World Series champion Boston Red Sox and their arch rivals, the New York Yankees, will play a series in London, the first MLB regular-season games every played in Europe.

Manfred's tenure through the end of the 2024 season puts him level with NBA commissioner Adam Silver and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, whose contracts are also set to end in 2024.

The new deal with Fox, a telecast partner with MLB for more than 20 years, will stretch the agreement for "baseball's marquee events for the next decade," according to Fox.

Variety reported fees are believed to be jumping between 30 and 50 percent during the new contract with the overall cost as much as $5.1 billion and annual fees rising from $525 million a year in the current eight-year deal that was to expire in 2021 to $675 million annually early in the new deal, sources told the magazine's website. — AFP