With the playoffs beginning tomorrow and no tiebreaker games on the books this week, it's time for me to continue my annual tradition of handing out awards. As I'm not a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, I can get away with this.
I've been pretty on the money the last few years in terms of picking the award winners. Let's give it another go.
Manager of the Year
 |
| Photo by the Associated Press (Photographer uncredited) |
Ned Yost, Kansas City Royals: 95-67 (1st in AL Central), 18 wins above COAS Prediction. I didn't expect the Royals to be as good as they were last year without James Shields, and instead they ran away with the division and they have home field advantage throughout the playoffs. They were fine offensively, with the third best average and finishing seventh in scoring while retaining an above average pitching staff overall. Also, considering I foolishly wrote them off at the beginning of the year, I need to give credit where credit is due. Sorry, Ned. Good luck this postseason.
 |
| Photo by Chris Carlson (AP) |
Joe Maddon, Chicago Cubs: 97-65 (3rd in NL Central), 14 wins above COAS Prediction. This is a bit tougher of a pick than you'd normally think. Terry Collins in New York is an intriguing one, considering I wasn't high on the Mets back in the spring, but here they are, NL East champions and boasting one of the deepest rotations in baseball. I think the only better argument would be Mike Matheny in St. Louis. When you consider all of the injuries the Cardinals went through this year, to still see them with the best record in all of baseball is absolutely incredible. The downside there is that everyone expected the Cardinals to be really good, and they were. No one expected the Cubs to be this good, this quickly. They're ahead of schedule, and Maddon deserves a lot of the credit. That said, if Matheny wins the award, I won't be upset.
Rookie of the Year
 |
| Photo by Troy Taormina (USA Today) |
Carlos Correa (SS, HOU): 99 G, .279/.345/.512, 22 HR, 22 2B, 1 3B, 68 RBI, 52 R, 14 SB. I struggled with this one for a bit before realizing that the choice was fairly obvious. Correa was a big part of the Astros' turnaround this season. He led AL rookies in home runs (which, as a shortstop, is amazing), showed pretty good plate discipline, and was very good all around. There haven't been many other great candidates, though Miguel Sano had a phenomenal second half for the Twins and Francisco Lindor hit .313 for Cleveland.
 |
| Photo by Getty Images (Photographer uncredited) |
Kris Bryant (3B, CHC): 151 G, .275/.369/.488, 26 HR, 31 2B, 5 3B, 99 RBI, 87 R, 13 SB. First of all: if your counterargument is Randall Grichuk, Stephen Piscotty, or Tommy Pham (or a combination of the three), get your Cardinals bias the hell off of my blog. Thank you. In fairness, Grichuk is the only guy who is really even close, and he does have the higher OPS over the course of the season, but this is with a smaller sample size, and for all the criticism of Bryant striking out a ton, he also walked 77 times, which was only the tenth-highest number in the National League; Grichuk walked just 22 times. Bryant also had better clutch numbers (per MLB.com's "late/close" split). Joc Pederson of the Dodgers was in the running about halfway through the year, but despite the 26 homers he only hit .210. It's Bryant's award, and there's really no math that can dispute it.
Cy Young Award
 |
| Photo by Jake Roth (USA TODAY Sports) |
Dallas Keuchel (SP, HOU): 33 G (33 starts), 20-8, 2.48 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, 232.0 IP, 51 BB, 216 K, .217 BAA, .575 OPSA. If you asked me this back in, say, June, I might have said Chris Sale. Instead, Sale fell behind and it became something of a two-man race between Keuchel and David Price. Price's ERA was three hundredths of a point better, and he struck out nine more guys in one fewer start/12 fewer innings. Keuchel has a better WHIP and a significantly better OPS against and batting average against. Strikeouts are flashy, and the race is overall pretty close, but I'll take Keuchel. And at least this race was easy...
 |
| Photo by Brian Kersey (Getty Images) |
Zach Greinke (SP, LAD): 32 G (32 starts), 19-3, 1.66 ERA, 0.84 WHIP, 222.2 IP, 40 BB, 200 K, .187 BAA, .507 OPSA. ...because last year's winner finished with another elite year, and he's going to be third in the final voting. I battled back and forth over this one between Greinke and Jake Arrieta. Greinke has the edge in walks, WHIP, and ERA, while Arrieta had more strikeouts (though not as many as Kershaw), a better batting average against, fewer home runs allowed, and four complete games (three of them shutouts, including that no-no against the Dodgers), while Greinke had just one complete game that wasn't a shutout. It's really, REALLY close. I'm taking Greinke based on the narrow edge in ERA and WHIP primarily, but I do hope Arrieta wins.
Most Valuable Player
 |
| Photo by Dan Hamilton (USA TODAY Sports) |
Josh Donaldson (3B, TOR): 158 G, .297/.371/.568, 41 HR, 41 2B, 2 3B, 123 RBI, 122 R, 6 SB. Donaldson's numbers are comparable to Mike Trout's (.299/.402/.590, 41 HR, 32 2B, 6 3B, 90 RBI, 101 R, 11 SB), and defensively they're probably both about the same. To me, I think the big difference is that the Blue Jays had a way better record than the Angels while both had quality supporting casts (Trout had a resurgent Pujols, Donaldson had Bautista and half a year of Troy Tulowitzki), and in cases where the numbers are close, I go with the guy whose team got to the playoffs. Their late/close numbers are comparable too, with Trout even having a slight edge arguably. Even so, I'm going with Donaldson.
 |
| Photo by Getty Images (Photographer uncredited) |
Bryce Harper (OF, WAS): 153 G, .330/.460/.649, 42 HR, 38 2B, 1 3B, 99 RBI, 118 R, 6 SB. When you have one guy who is far away the best player in the league even if his team doesn't make the playoffs, this is where I go away from the "playoff team" rule. Harper's 1.109 OPS is the best by more than a tenth of a point, ahead of Paul Goldschmidt and Joey Votto, and is a top-20 defender in the National League by a couple advanced metrics. His RBI numbers are a little low, but through no fault of his own. If we were to look at guys from playoff teams, I'd put McCutchen right there as well, the duo of Grienke/Kershaw would be up there if they weren't splitting votes, and Anthony Rizzo is going to get some votes as well. And one final time if Cardinal homers came back after my earlier rant (and trust me... these idiots exist): Yadier Molina is not the MVP. Not even close. Elite defensive catcher and a great intangibles guy, yes, but you need tangible stuff too to win an MVP, and he didn't really have it. Also, I'd take Russell Martin and Buster Posey before I take a declining catcher who spits on umpires and complains to them in the middle of a play while runs score.
No comments:
Post a Comment