Post Season Awards

With the lack of penant races this year, a lot of people have started to focus their energy on discussing post season awards.  I think that this is mostly crazy because there's still over a month left in the season.  Most of the major awards, MVP's, Cy Young's, and Rookie of the Year's, are too close to call at this point.  The most unanimous award at this point is probably Justin Verlander for AL Cy Young, but with Jered Weaver pitching as well as he is, that's no lock.

Before the year, I filled out a spreadsheet with all of my picks for divisions, awards, and World Series among other things.  In this post I'm going to tell my predictions for MVP, Cy, and ROY, why I chose them, and how they're holding up.  These predictions were for who I thought would win it, not why I thought would deserve it.


National League:
MVP - Troy Tulowitzki
This choice was based on my prediction that the Rockies would win the NL West.  They still could, and if they do surge back to take it, I can only assume Tulo would have to put up a monster September like he did last year.

The major players for the NL MVP this year are Justin Upton, the two Milwaukee sluggers, Brian McCann, and I guess Ryan Howard (because the best team in the league has to have at least one candidate), even though I think Shane Victorino has been the best player on that team this year.  My Tulo prediction doesn't look too good, oh well. Any one of these players is deserving, and I don't think this race will be settled until the last week of the season.





Cy Young - Roy Halladay
I felt like this was an easy pick.  He's the best pitcher in the league, he was the reining champion, and I felt like the Phillies group of aces would get so much attention, that Halladay would get it for being the best of the bunch.

This race is very close between Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Clayton Kershaw.  Cole Hamels was pitching well before he went to the DL, but I don't think that he can recover and over take those three.  Halladay is probably still the front runner for the award, although I'm not sure anyone realizes how awesome Kershaw has been this year, his ERA is at 2.5 and he's striking out almost 10 batters per nine innings.


Rookie of the Year - Craig Kimbrel
I only chose Kimbrel for this award because it seems like a closer wins one of these every year.  I wasn't sure that Freddie Freeman or Brandon Belt could hold onto their jobs before the season started, so I chose Kimbrel because I didn't see a lot out there.

This one is still close between Kimbrel and Freeman.  Belt has struggled with the Giants, and hasn't had consistant playing time all season.  A few others who've thrown their hats into the ring during the course of the season are Brandon Beachy, Danny Espinosa and Cory Luebke.  Luebke is a Buckeye, so it'd be awesome if he won it, but I think it'll probably be between the two Braves players, however if Kimbrel gets up to 50 saves (he only needs ten more), I don't think there's any way that the BBWA wouldn't give him the award.



American League:
MVP - Miguel Cabrera
He almost won it last year, and I thought that the Tigers were gonna run away with the division this year.  I didn't think that Josh Hamilton could repeat that season he had in 2010.  I was worried about Adrian Gonzalez power after his offseason shoulder surgery.  I wasn't sold on Jose Bautista being better than he was last year, and I don't think many people expected Curtis Granderson to be this good.

At this point, Jose Bautista looks to be the front runner in my eyes.  It'd be hard for anyone to lead the league in OBP, SLG, and home runs, and not get the award.  If the Blue Jays were in the central, they'd be running away with the division, and this wouldn't even be debatable.  The other contenders are Curtis Granderson, Adrian Gonzalez, Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, and Justin Verlander.  Verlander has an outside shot as a pitcher, but I think if he had one bad start from here on out, people would drop his name form the conversation.


Cy Young - Justin Verlander
I've been a Verander fan for a few years now.  He had one bad year in 2008, and I don't think that his reputation has ever fully recovered.  He's good, and I always draft him in fantasy drafts because he's always underrated.  He's a beast and I thought that if the Tigers won the division, it'd be on his and Miguel Cabrera's shoulders.

Jered Weaver and CC Sabathia are really the only other contenders for this award.  Of the two, Weaver has the better numbers, but CC  has a lot of innings, and gets a lot of attention for pitching in New York.  Feliz Hernandez was fun to watch last year, but not so much this year.  I've seen him pitch a few times this year, and you can se it in his body language that after he gives up a second run, he knows that he has no chance of winning.


Rookie of the Year - Jeremy Hellickson
Before the year, this award looked like it would be slim pickens. Hellickson seemed like the best option out there.  I wasn't sure that Michael Pineda was ready for the big leagues, and didn't know when Dustin Ackley would be up, or how he'd play in Safeco.

This crop of choices is actually pretty deep this year with no stand out candidates.  Hellickson has been fine, with a good ERA but skeptical K/BB rate.  Pineda started off very good, but has been brutal of late.  Ackley came to the majors and was immediately the best hitter on the team, but that's not saying much.  Mark Trumbo has him some mammoth home runs, but I don't know about giving the award to a first baseman with a sub .300 OBP.  Desmond Jennings probably would have one the award if Sam Fuld hadn't started off the season so well.  Since Jennings has been up, he's been one of the top 20 players in the game.  All these players are pretty equal, they all have faults, and I feel like this will also be a close race.



Of all my predictions for these awards, I think both of my Cy Young and Rookie of the year predictions have a chance to come through, but my MVP choices will be a long shot.

Other Notes:
Manager of the Year:
I do not like the "Manager of the Year" awards because it's almost automatically given to the manager who's team outperforms  their preseason predictions, regardless of how the manager actually did.  In the National League, Kurt Gibson looks to be the front runner, even though it was largely Kevin Towers who constructed the team that was underrated before the season.  Fact: Jim Tracy was a Manager of the Year award in 2009.  If Fredi Gonzalez wins this year, maybe we can all realize just how pointless this award is.  Just like if Casey Kotchman wins the batting title.

GM of the Year:
I don't think that this award exists, but I'm doing it anyway.  There are two GM's this year that I think deserve this award, and it just so happens that they're in different leagues, so it works out perfectly.  In the National League Kevin Towers of the Diamondbacks.  He fixed the bullpen, improved the defense, and has the team contending.  Just think how the team could be doing if they had Dan Haren instead of Joe Saunders, but that trade was made by Jerry Dipoto, the last GM.  In the American League Alex Anthopoulos has to get the award.  He somehow managed to turn three middle relievers into Colby Rasmus without even using the Marlins as a middle man.  He made the right move in signing Jose Bautista, and acquired Yunel Escobar at last years deadline for Alex Gonzalez and a middle reliever.  He even got rid of the Vernon Wells contact without having to pay it all of add a prospect into the deal, and even got a good piece back in Mike Napoli.  He's been doing things right of late, with his only bad move being trading Mike Napoli for Frank Francisco.  They didn't have a spot for Napoli, but I think that they could have done better that a relief pitcher with a long injury history.  He might have felt like he was playing with house money at the time after getting rid of Vernon Wells.