Nationals Arm Race

Turner is on everyone’s mind. photo via wp.com

I know my “Fantasy post-mortem” post didn’t move the needle; luckily Nats MLB.com beat reporter Bill Ladson posted another inbox!  2nd one in two weeks!

Here’s how I would have answered these questions, if I was in a position to have random fans email me questions all the time 🙂

Q: Is Trea Turner eligible for the National League Rookie of the Year Award? If he is, he should be the winner.

A: Absolutely Trea Turner is eligible.  Is he going to win?  Uh… better go check the season that Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager just had.  Turner probably finishes 2nd or 3rd.  If I had a vote, I’d probably go Seager, Kenta Maeda, Turner, Trevor Story and then Aledmys Diaz to round out the top 5.  Turner has been awesome no doubt, but Seager is an MVP candidate and did it all year.  If Turner had done what he has been doing for the full season?  Yeah he’d probably be at a Mike Trout level of production and we’d be having a far different conversation about him.  Ladson Agrees.

Q: You said you thought Dusty Baker sticks with slumping players too long, but you didn’t list Bryce Harper on that list.

A: I think its one thing to stick with a slumping player too long when you have a better alternative (or even a possible better alternative) on the bench.  But how do you possibly claim that Bryce Harper deserved benching?  He was the frigging MVP last year; talk about impatience.  And even with his “down” season Harper still has an OPS+ of 117.  Harper has had a really weird season: his month by month splits show him crushing in April, falling off a cliff in May after the walkathon in Chicago, rebounding for a solid June, hitting just .176 in July, rebounding again in August (.934 OPS) and then again falling off a cliff so far in September (hitting just .203 this month).  If the partern holds, he’ll get hot again just in time for the October playoff games 🙂

Are the persistent rumors about his shoulder true?  Respected national reporter Tom Verducci has reported it not once but twice, each time with a more vehement denial from GM Mike Rizzo, but his drop off from last year is pretty apparent for all to see.  Certainly it would explain why he’s struggled so badly this year.  Are Rizzo et al denying so as to prevent a competitive disadvantage from being public knowledge?  Probably too late for that.

Ladson agrees; Harper is a different story.

Q: Do you think the 2016 Nationals team is stronger than the ’14 Nationals was?

A: Yes I do.  I think the 2016 rotation(at full strength) matched up better than 2014’s, the bullpen is stronger, and I think the hitting is more consistent with more production across the team.  Now, maybe a better question is, “Which team was better positioned heading into the playoffs?  There the answer is inarguably the 2014 team; the rotation we’ll field in the NLDS is two studs and then two question marks, we really don’t have a shutdown lefty in the bullpen, and two of our best hitters (Harper and Danny Murphy) are hurt.  Not a good time for all these injuries to hit.  Ladson gives the edge to 2014 for similar reasons as I gave.

Q: Being a longtime Expos fan and seeing that you covered them, how would you compare Vladimir Guerrero to Harper?

A: I’ll freely admit that I’m not nearly as qualified to answer this as Ladson.  But i’ll give it an opinion; Guerrero was a better hitter, more capable of hitting whatever was thrown his way.  They were comparable in terms of defense; both had powerful arms and great range.  I give Guerrero the edge in speed on the basepaths, and Harper the edge in power (which is tough to say given that Guerrero hit 40+ a few times and had 449 for his career).  Both players only have one MVP: Guerrero’s came at age 29 as soon as he got out of Montreal.  Harper won his last year at the tender age of 22, and you have to think he’s got more in him.  Ladson gives the edge to Guerrero for now.

Q: With the emergence of Turner in center field, do you think the Nats will bring back both Ben Revere and Michael Taylor next season?

A: Revere no, Taylor yes.  Revere is arb-eligible and is making north of $6M this year; he’s an obvious non-tender this coming off-season.  Taylor is still under complete club control and is not arb-eligible for another year.  I can see the team going one of three ways (as we’ve discussed here at length):

1. Turner to short, Espinosa traded and we look for a CF in trade or via FA.  Taylor the 4th outfielder.
2. Turner to short, Espinosa moved, Harper to CF and we get a FA corner outfielder (my preference but not likely to happen).  Taylor the 4th outfielder.
3. Standing pat: Turner stays in CF, Espinosa stays at short, and Taylor is the 4th outfielder.

In all these scenarios, Taylor is the 4th outfielder.  Is he even the 4th outfielder?  Well, he’s now had 781 plate appearances in the majors; he’s hitting .224 and he’s struck out 248 of those appearances.  Not good.  I’m not sure what we do with him at this point.  Ladson agrees with me on non-tendering Revere, and thinks Taylor needs another year in the minors.

What will Treinen give this team in 2016? Photo via zimbio.com

Happy Valentines Day 2016!  And what better way to celebrate it than an Inbox from MLB.com’s Nats beat reporter Bill Ladson.  Here’s how I would have answered his questions had someone bothered to ask me.  As always, I write my answer before reading his, and edit questions for clarity.

Q: What is the biggest change the Nationals must make to be competitive in the NL East?

A: Well first, lets be honest.  There’s really only 2 teams even *trying* in the NL East 2016, so calling it “competitive” is sort of like claiming that the Washington Generals were “competitive” with the Harlem Globetrotters all those years.

For me the biggest thing the Nats need to do is just stay frigging healthy.  If Harper plays another full year maybe he doesn’t do another 10-win season, but you have to think he’ll be quite good.  Rendon was one of the NL’s top players two years ago; no reason not to think he could return to form.  Strasburg needs to be the guy all year in 2016 that he was in August and September of last year.  Werth and Zimmerman are both seemingly on the down side of their careers but there’s no reason they can’t be valuable contributors if they can stay on the field.  If all of that happens, then this team suddenly is the 95-98 win juggernaut that everyone thought they’d be in 2015.

Ladson mentions the Bullpen and team defense.  I guess he’s bought into the Royal’s plan as the way of winning going forward.

Q: What will Blake Treinen‘s impact be on the team be this year? It seems like he has the talent to make an impact on the team.

A: Well, right now Treinen is probably the “last guy in” to the bullpen; if the Nats were to acquire another RH middle reliever, Treinin likely gets bumped to AAA.  That’s because lefties hit him for an astounding .934 OPS last year.   His K/9 jumped dramatically his 2nd year in the pen .. but so did his BB/9.  Its pretty astounding to me that a guy with his kind of stuff (upper 90s sinking fastball with so much  movement that commentators think he’s throwing circle changes) struggles the way he does.  So my answer to the question is “minimal unless he can get lefties out with more regularity.”  Ladson basically says the same thing with the same observations.

Q: Do you expect Lucas Giolito with the big league club in 2016 or will he get a full season in Syracuse?

A: Something tells me that we may see Giolito in the majors this year, yes.  He didn’t light AA on fire last year … so I see him starting the season there (and not AAA).  I also see him quickly earning a promotion to AAA or perhaps straight to the majors, just like the team did with Joe Ross last year.  Or, consider what the team did with Jordan Zimmermann, who jumped straight from AA to the majors (albeit after spending most of the 2008 season in AA).

Why do I think Giolito is going to appear in the majors this year?  Because this is our last year with Strasburg before he signs a $200M contract somewhere.  And this is  one of our last couple years with Harper before he signs a $500M contract.  And when you have two of the marquee players in the game … you try to win at all costs.  This is the criticism of the Angels right now with Mike Trout and if the Nats go cheap or don’t use everything in their disposal to try to win a championship while they still have Harper, then it’ll be the same situation with the Nats.  So if one of our starters goes down and A.J Cole or Austin Voth can’t cut the mustard, then I expect Giolito to be on the MLB team without too much delay.

Ladson says it depends on how he looks in Spring Training.  I dunno about that; when scouts talk about how he has two grade 70 pitches already … what else is there to see?  I’m sure he’ll look awesome against AAA players and other re-treads in the later innings of ST games, will go to AA with the missive of “working on something” in particular, and will be up soon.  Ladson also says he “has no limits” in terms of innings; that too I think is BS.  He’ll be limited to no more than a 20% increase year over year.  He threw 117 innings last year; don’t expect him to throw much more than 140-150 innings.

Q: What kind of season do you expect from Gio Gonzalez?

A: I think we’ll see a slight improvement for Gonzalez over 2015’s campaign for reasons as frequently pointed out by JohnC: his peripherals were crummy, lots of bad luck on balls in play, and the defense behind him was rather subpar.  I’m thinking something like 13-9, 3.45 ERA, 1.30 whip.  Not bad for a 3rd or 4th starter.  Ladson implies that this could be Gio’s “last year” because he’s entering his option years.  Uh Bill, are you seeing what mediocre starting pitchers are going for on the FA market?  Gonzalez’s options are each at $12M for the next two years.  Jon Lackey is older and lesser, and just signed a 2yr/$32M deal.  Who would you rather have?

Q: Do you expect a significant contribution from any of the players signed to Minor League contracts?

A: A couple of the MLFA signings come to mind as possible contributors, absolutely.  Reed Johnson, Brendan Ryan, and Bronson Arroyo could all be surprising players come spring training, and an injury or two could open the way for their place on the opening day roster absolutely.  Just look at what happened to this team last spring, with a slew of guys on the opening day D/L and both MLFAs and non-tender candidates not only making the team but contributing the entire season (see Robinson, Clint and Moore, Tyler).  Ladson mentions one other guy Chris Heisey who could also factor in.

Q: I’m asking for a prediction: Who do you think will be the starting shortstop between Danny Espinosa, Trea Turner and Stephen Drew?

A: I’m going with Danny Espinosa honestly; the way the roster has been constructed its clear to me Turner is starting the season in AAA and Drew will be the utility infielder.  If Espinosa hits .200 in April though, all bets are off.  I know many will say that it should be Turner … bit if its Turner, then that leaves a veteran like Moore or Drew on the outside looking in.  Ladson says Turner; well see!

Griffey is a shoe-in for 2016 class; who else might be affected? Photo via freeteam.com

(Editor note: we’ll take a quick break from the minor league reviews and arguing about why the Nats are trying to fill a 5th starter spot instead of one of their several obvious needs for that classic Late December task: arguing about the Hall of Fame.  I wrote most of this post much earlier this summer/fall, waiting for the “hall of fame” blogger season to post it.  Now’s as good of a time as any).

In the middle of the 2015 post-season, an interesting tidbit got reported by NBCSports’ Craig Calcaterra: The Hall of Fame BBWAA electorate has been reduced by a whopping 20% thanks to the new voter eligibility rules announced back in July 2015.

20% of voters!  That’s a huge number.  I thought the rules, when they were first announced, would have a negligible effect on things and would be a paper tiger.  But losing 20% of the voters will have a profound effect on the ballots going forward.  I agree with Calcaterra in characterizing these types of voters as generally being out of touch, industry-has-passed-them-by, believe everything they read from Murray Chass types who have directly led to the ballot congestion and the ridiculous voting patterns we’ve seen lately.  No word yet on whether the category of writers purged also includes those who no longer cover the sport actively (the most egregious example being the 3 voters who write for www.golferswest.com) who not only kept their votes but felt the need to pontificate about the state of the sport!).

Early returns are promising, by the way.  The BBHOF tracker website has taken the lead in collecting all published ballots and they’re tracked directly in this Google xls.  As of the time of this writing, they have about 20% of the ballots in the tracker spreadsheet and borderline candidates like Piazza, Raines and Bagwell are all trending above the 75% needed.  Griffey is at a perfect 100% and still looks like a good bet to beat Tom Seaver‘s all time record.  That is until some curmudgeons decide they like Seaver more than Griffey and send in blank ballots or some dumb-ass thing.

Key Dates in 2016 HoF class voting:

• 11/9/15: ballot officially released, though we’ve known for years who’s actually on it thanks to baseball-reference.com.
• 12/21/15: BBWAA ballots due back to Cooperstown for counting
• 1/6/16: Class of 2016 announced, as well as 10,000 internet blogger posts on the topic.
• 7/24/16: Official induction ceremony for the Class of 2016 in Cooperstown, NY

Anyway.  Lets look at the 2016 Ballot (hey, its never too early to do Hall of Fame vote analysis) and guess how things may go for the candidates, now that 20% of dead-weight is gone.

• Ken Griffey Jr: if anything, his chances of breaking Tom Seaver‘s vote % record may rise thanks to the elimination of a bunch of curmudgeons who have been witholding votes inexplicably to prevent there ever being a unanimous inductee.  Easily gets elected in 2016.
• Trevor Hoffman: might be hurt by more new-age voters who realize how minimal the impact of a closer is, no matter how good (Hoffman had just a 28.4 career bWAR, less than Mike Trout had accumulated by the end of his third full season, by way of comparison).

There’s not really anyone else new to the 2016 class worth mentioning; I could see Jim Edmonds getting 5% of the vote to stay on the ballot but nobody else getting much more than home-town beat writer sympathy votes.  This isn’t an indictment of Edmonds at all; there’s just too many good players on the ballot (our lament every year) and I think he’s a worthy candidate (some of the Jay Jaffe JAWS analysis on Edmonds is pretty telling; for a period of 10 years during his peak he trailed only Griffey and Bonds in terms of WAR).

How about the hold overs?  I think there’s good news for some guys:

• Mike Piazza/Jeff Bagwell: two “PED-suspicion” guys who have never had any actual concrete proof against them probably now get in thanks to the elimination of a class of voters who probably believed everything they read in the anonymous-sourced NYTimes articles from 10 years ago.  Bagwell has further to go and may not get to 75%, but Piazza should.
• Tim Raines: the more older/non sabremetric appreciating voters that go mean the higher percentage of votes Raines will get from more modern voters who realize just how valuable he was.  Like Bagwell, he has further to go and may not get to 75% this time, but between 2016 and 2017 he should get in.
• Roger Clemens/Barry Bonds: I can see their vote totals rise from the 35% they’ve  been getting into the 50% range, still not enough to get enshrinement.  Still too many wounds and not enough voters who can overcome their disdain for what happened.
• Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa: same story as Clemens/Bonds, except whack off another 20% of votes.
• Curt Schilling/Mike Mussina: Hard to see their vote totals changing much; older voters were probably giving Schilling too much credit for the bloody sock game but new voters havn’t supported him as much as expected (and he’s doing himself no favors with his continued idiotic political twitter posts).  Mussina just doens’t seem like the kind of pitcher that gets elected to the Hall thanks to a long career without specific accolades and being a known pr*ck to the media.

Everyone else held over from the 2015 ballot not already mentioned (Smith, Martinez, Trammell, Kent, McGriff, Walker, Sheffield, Garciaparra) each have specific issues that likely prevent any of them from getting much above the vote totals they’ve already gotten and probably won’t be helped much by the purge of the electorate.  I would vote for some of these guys (namely Martinez and Trammell) but understand why others don’t.

This is as close to a prediction piece as we’ll do for the Hall of Fame 2016 ballot (there’s way too many of them already), but my guess is that we’ll be seeing just Griffey and Piazza in Cooperstown in July 2016, with Bagwell, Raines and perhaps Hoffman right on the cusp to join them in 2017 (where the incoming class has some pretty serious PED-related issues that should be fascinating to watch play out; more on that in a year’s time).

Here’s some similar articles for your Hall of Fame perusal:

• Jay Jaffe‘s JAWS analysis for the 2016 ballot.
• Steve Aschburner at The Federalist similar analysis to above.
• Some classic Craig Calcaterra ranting at the audacity of a stripped HoFame voter whining about his loss of vote.
• The electorate voted down an option to increase the ballot size; why??
• The same Calcaterra announcing he’s going to stop mocking individual ballots.  Good; it was getting tiresome.  Yes we know you have an opinion.  I do too.

Harper & Donaldson deservedly win MVPs. photo via si.com

There’s few long running posts I have managed to do year after year in this blog; this is one of them.  Every year I predict the awards, then report on how my predictions went after the fact.  And then I brag about how good a job I did in reading the tea leaves and predicting the awards.

This is that post for 2015 🙂

Here’s the same prediction posts with my BBWAA award prediction results for 2014 (6 for 8), 2013 (8 for 8), 2012 (7 for 8), 2011 (8 for 8), and 2010 (8 for 8).

For 2015, here were my original predictions and the actual winners for the major BBWAA Awards plus the “Comeback” awards for 2015:

My Final Predictions with discussion: We went 7 for 8 in predictions for 2015.  I missed on the NL manager of the year.

• NL MVP: Predicted Bryce Harper.  Actual winner: Harper unanimously.  After all the angst about narrative, the voters did the right thing and selected the only guy who made sense to select.
• NL Cy Young: Predicted Jake Arrieta.  Actual winner: Arrieta, with 17 1st place votes.  Scherzer 5th.
• NL Rookie: Predicted Kris Bryant.  Actual winner: Bryant.  Unanimous winner, no real challenger in the NL.
• NL Manager: Predicted Terry Collins.  Actual winner: Joe Maddon, with 18 1st place votes.  My guess (Collins) came in third.  This was probably a dumb prediction; I should have “read the tea leaves” a bit more in terms of narrative, which drives these awards so much, and correlated the fact that it was the Cubs (a high profile team), Maddon (a high profile manager) and the fact that the Cubs did in reality really exceed expectations this year.
• AL MVP: Predicted Josh Donaldson.  Actual winner: Donaldson, with 23 1st place votes over Mike Trout, who many argue (yet again) had a better statistical season.
• AL Cy Young: Predicted Dallas Keuchel.  Actual winner: Keuchel with 22 1st place votes over David Price‘s 8.
• AL Rookie: Predicted Carlos Correa.  Actual winner: Correa, in a close race over Francisco Lindor (17-13 in terms of 1st place votes)
• AL Manager: Predicted Jeff Banister.  Actual winner: Banister with 17 1st place votes

In my 2015 post I also predicted the “Comeback Player of the year awards,” given a couple of weeks ago.

• NL Comeback: Predicted Matt Harvey.  Actual winner: Harvey, as announced on 11/5/15.  Really no better option in the NL than Harvey, who had a very solid season after missing the entirety of 2014 with Tommy John surgery.
• AL Comeback: Predicted Prince Fielder.  Actual winner: Fielder, as announced on 11/5/15.  Really, unless you were going to give Alex Rodriguez the award for his drug-related suspension, there was no better NL candidate.

Other Awards given that I don’t try to predict anymore.

• Fielding Bible Awards: not an official award but certainly a better way of evaluating defenders than the Gold Gloves (though, to be fair, they’re getting much much better at identifying the true best defenders year in, year out).
• Gold Gloves; A couple of questionable awards for the Gold Gloves; we’ll post a separate fielding award post reviewing the Gold Gloves, Fielding Bible awardees and look at the various defensive metrics to see if/how they all align.
• Silver Sluggers: Bryce Harper wins, no real surprises.
• Hank Aaron awards for “Most Outstanding Offensive Player” in each league: Bryce Harper and Josh Donaldson, who not surprisingly is who I chose for my MVP predictions.  I kinda wish this was a more prevalent award than the constant arguing we have about MVP.
• Relievers of the Year: formerly known as the “Fireman’s reliever awards” and now named for legendary relievers Mariano Rivera/Trevor Hoffman: won this year by Andrew Miller of the Yankees, Mark Melancon of the Pirates.
• Sporting News Executive of the Year: Toronto’s Alex Anthopoulis, who announced he was stepping down the same day he got the award.
• A slew of other Sporting News awards, mimicking the BBWAA awards: googleable but more or less following the above.
• MLB Player’s Choice Awards: Donaldson beats out Harper for POTY; also awards BBWAA-emulating awards that more or less follow how the actual BBWAA awards went.
• Links to all the awards I know of plus the full off-season schedule of events is on my 2015-16 Off-Season Baseball Calendar.

That’s it for the silly season!  On to the fun business of player moves for 2016.

Hopefully his MVP vote goes better for Harper than this day did. (Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images)

Everyone does an “Awards Prediction piece.”  This post for me is kind of a running diary throughout the season, with the final predictions written at season’s end but then not published until after the WS ends/Awards season starts.

A few awards have already been given out, ones that I don’t necessarily try to predict anymore:

• Fielding Bible Awards: not an official award but certainly a better way of evaluating defenders than the Gold Gloves (though, to be fair, they’re getting much much better at identifying the true best defenders year in, year out).  No Nats awarded.
• Gold Glove Finalists: announced with 3 finalists for each award; Bryce Harper and Wilson Ramos named as finalists but neither will win.
• Hank Aaron awards for “Most Outstanding Offensive Player” in each league: Bryce Harper and Josh Donaldson, who not surprisingly is who I chose for my MVP predictions.  I kinda wish this was a more prevalent award than the constant arguing we have about MVP.
• Relievers of the Year: formerly known as the “Fireman’s reliever awards” and now named for legendary relievers Mariano Rivera/Trevor Hoffman: won this year by Andrew Miller of the Yankees, Mark Melancon of the Pirates.
• Sporting News Executive of the Year: Toronto’s Alex Anthopoulis, who announced he was stepping down the same day he got the award.
• A whole slew of other Sporting News annual awards: google “sporting news baseball awards 2015” and you can see players of the year, pitcher of the year,  post-season all-star teams, manager of the year, etc.

I put all these dates and links plus a whole lot more into my “off-season” calendar, which will publish soon now that the season is officially over.

(random self promotion related to the Sporting News: they recently published one of my quora.com “answers” titled “Are there Any cities that should have an MLB team,” an answer that I wrote referencing back to this blog for previously published/researched information).

My Final Predictions:

• NL MVP: Bryce Harper
• NL Cy Young: Jake Arrieta
• NL Rookie: Kris Bryant
• NL Manager: Terry Collins
• NL Comeback: Matt Harvey
• AL MVP: Josh Donaldson
• AL Cy Young: Dallas Keuchel
• AL Rookie: Carlos Correa
• AL Manager: Jeff Bannister
• AL Comeback: Prince Fielder

These are not always who I think *deserve* the awards necessarily, just how I think the voters will vote.  There are some really close races.  Here’s my thoughts:

• NL MVP: Bryce Harper wins for three main reasons: 1) his season is one of the best of the last 50 years.  2) there’s no obvious candidate on any of the division winning teams (no sorry, Yoenis Cespedes doesn’t count) and 3) Even though the Nats didn’t win the division, they were in the race nearly the entire season.  No excuses here.  You might see some non-Harper votes b/c some middle aged fat slob of a homer writer has some misrepresented axe to grind but he should win easily.
• NL Cy Young: Jake Arrieta: I can’t believe I’ve selected Arrieta over Greinke, but Arrieta’s 2nd half will, again, “win the narrative.”  Kershaw has been unbelievable too (and my fantasy team in the championship is proof), so really you can’t go wrong with these guys in any order.  I think it goes Arrietta, Greinke, Kershaw.  Side note; so, is the Baltimore pitching coaching staff the most incompetent in the league or what?  How does Arrieta go from being a 6ERA starter in Baltimore to a guy who is posting a sub 2.00 ERA in one of the best hitter’s parks in the league?
• NL Rookie: Kris Bryant: for a while I thought this was Joc Pederson‘s to lose … but Bryant kept hitting and Pederson sat.  Wow are the Astros kicking themselves for drafting Mark Appel over Bryant or what??
• NL Manager: Terry Collins: There’s no team in the NL in a more surprising position than the Mets, so Collins wins the award that our own Matt Williams so richly “earned” last year.  I wouldn’t be surprised though to see Joe Maddon get this given how great the Cubs were.
• NL Comeback Player of the year has to be Matt Harvey; there’s nobody else really close in the NL.
• AL MVP: Josh Donaldson: There’s just no reason Mike Trout shouldn’t win this award … except that voters are a fickle bunch and fall for the story.  Donaldson is a good story, playing on a good story of a team in Toronto.  He wins.
• AL Cy Young: Dallas Keuchel: He was the best in the first half, the ASG starter, and no there’s no reason not to think he finishes off the season.  In fantasy he was like a 15th round pick and he’s a top-10 producer.  Amazing.
• AL Rookie: Carlos Correa: If you want to argue that Francisco Lindor deserves this, I wouldn’t disagree.  I’m guessing Correa has the name power with the voters though and wins out.  Lindor has a much better average and is a superior defender, but Correa has 20+ homers, a benchmark number that will get him the votes.
• AL Manager: Jeff Bannister: Even though Toronto is a surprise team, getting the talent handed to you like that is not the mark of a champion manager.  What is going on in Texas is nothing short of amazing.  At the beginning of the season the had an *entire rotation* on the D/L: Darvish, Harrison, Perez, Scheppers and Holland.  Scheppers may not have stayed there very long, but they looked like a 90-loss team, not a divisional winner over the likes of LA and Houston.
• AL Comeback player of the  year goes to Prince Fielder for returning strongly from his neck injury.  If Alex Rodriguez had missed a year due to injury instead of litigation, he would likely be the winner.  By the way; how good was Alex Rodriguez doing color work for Fox Sports at the World Series?  He was damn impressive to me, great analysis, well spoken, well-dressed of course … and could not have provided more contrast to Pete Rose if they had found those two guys out of central casting.

So, how did the major awards evolve over the course of the season?  By my sense, the awards kind of went like this from April to September:

• NL MVP: Stanton to Harper, maybe Goldschmidt, no definitely Harper, narrative Cespedes but has to be Harper.  Nobody else makes sense to take it away from him on narrative.
• NL Cy Young: Scherzer early, definitely Scherzer, maybe Cole, suddenly Greinke in the lead, Kershaw coming on fast late but Arrieta’s 2nd  halve clinches it.
• NL Rookie: Bryant and Pederson early, Pederson stretching a lead … but then Pederson gets benched while Bryant continues to play.  Some talk about Duffy, but still Bryant.  Too many homers.
• AL MVP: Trout to Cabrera, back to Trout, then Donaldson takes over despite Trout’s phenomenal season.
• AL Cy Young: Hernandez early, Keuchel strong mid season, Grey fading, Sale making a name but still Keuchel despite Price’s excellent season.
• AL Rookie: Travis/Souza early, Burns making a name, but Correa is the leader most of the season, Lindor making noise late, Correa holds on.

As with last year’s version of this post, instead of printing links to writers early and mid-season predictions, I’ll just throw those links into the monthly reviews for context.   This post is more like a season-long diary of the evolution of these awards; the sections were written in each month as the season progressed.

BaseballMusings maintains a Cy Young tracker stat, which is useful to identify candidates but not really a predictor.

April:

Here’s some early candidates out to fast starts.

Opinions this month: Symborski‘s ZIPS predictors after one month.

• MVP candidates: Trout/Cabrera again in the AL.  Adrian Gonzalez, Giancarlo Stanton and Paul Goldschmidt in the NL.
  
• Cy Young candidates: Felix Hernandez in the AL, Kershaw and Scherzer in the NL.
• Rookie of the year candidates: Devon Travis and Steven Souza in the AL, Kris Bryant and Joc Pederson in the NL.

May:

Harper NL Player of the month, after getting 2 straight player of the week awards.  Scherzer wins NL Pitcher of the month.

• MVP candidates: Trout stretching lead in AL, Jason Kipnis and Nelson Cruz also high in bWAR.  Bryce Harper has stretched a massive WAR lead in the NL, Goldschmidt #2.  Anthony Rizzo entering the discussion.
  
• Cy Young candidates: Dallas Keuchel and Sonny Gray in the AL, Max Scherzer really standing alone in the NL; closest WAR pitcher in the NL is Aaron Harang and he isn’t likely to keep the pace.
• Rookie of the year candidates: Still Travis and Souza in the AL, Kris Bryant and Joc Pederson in the NL are both explosive players and will be hard to catch.

All Star Break

• MVP candidates: Probably still Trout and Harper.  Goldschmidt is nearly as good but Harper has the narrative.
  
• Cy Young candidates: Dallas Keuchel and Zack Greinke were the All Star starters and may be the leading candidates. Scherzer needs to get some run support; he’s barely above .500.
• Rookie of the year candidates: Former Nat Billy Burns is in the bWAR lead, but Carlos Correa likely gets the nod.  In the NL, Bryant/Pederson have a commanding lead but Matt Duffy starting to put his name out there, and if the Cubs would just let Kyle Schwarber stay in the majors he might hit his way to the title.

Mid August

• MVP candidates: Trout has competition in the form of Josh Donaldson in the AL.  Nobody’s close to Harper in the NL, still.
  
• Cy Young candidates: In the NL, Scherzer’s star has faded while LA’s two aces have each had a significant scoreless innings streak and could finish 1-2.  Also in the NL; deserving candidates Jacob deGrom, Jake Arrietta and Gerrit Cole.  In the AL, it still looks like a dogfight between Gray and Keuchel.  But David Price is coming on strong post-trade and Chris Archer should get some top-5 votes.
• Rookie of the year candidates: Its the year of the rookie; never before have we seen so many high-impact rookies in the league at once.  The AL seems set for Carlos Correa, with guys like Roberto Osuna, Andrew Heaney and Lance McCullers chasing him.  The NL has a number of candidates.  Bryant and Pederson have gotten the ink, but guys like Matt Duffy, Jung Ho Kang, Noah Snydergaard and Randal Grichuk are also worthy players.  Taylor Jungmann, Kyle Schwarber and even Joe Ross are also rans in the race thanks to later callups.  Bryant may win thanks to name recognition, but in other years any of these guys would have been candidates.
• Managers of the  Year: we’re 100 games into the season, early enough to see some trends in the “Award-given-to-the-manager for his team unexpectedly overachieving the most in 2015” award.  In the AL, clearly Houston is the surprise team and in the NL the Mets are the surprise team, so we’ll go with A.J. Hinch and Terry Collins.
• Comeback Players of the Year: Early candidates include Brett Anderson, Jeff Francoeur, Danny Espinosa and perhaps Matt Harvey.  In the AL, I think it has to be Alex Rodriguez or perhaps Prince Fielder.  Perhaps Chris Davis comes into the mix too.

September

• MVP candidates: In the AL: Donaldson has overtaken Trout thanks to a huge end-of-season push and Trout’s injury.  In the NL, the Nats downturn may have opened up the door for both Anthony Rizzo and Andrew McCutchen.  That is if we listen to “narrative” about how teams need to be playing meaningful games.  Of course that being said, the Nats are playing very meaningful games; they’re trying to chase down a divisional leader so maybe the narrative still works for Harper.  But  not after a home sweep, when NY beat writers start beating the drum for Cespedes .. .which would be ridiculous since he only played a couple of months in the NL.
  
• Cy Young candidates: In the AL, it probably comes down to Keuchel and Sale, with Price in the mix too thanks to his sterling season for Toronto post-trade.  In the NL: Arrietta has had the greatest 2nd half in baseball history; can he overtake Greinke?
• Rookie of the year candidates: In the AL: Francisco Lindor making some noise but its still Correa.  In the NL, Pederson has gotten benched so it looks like Bryant is the leader, despite Duffy’s better season by WAR.
• Managers of the  Year: at this point the “surprise” teams are the Mets and suddenly the Rangers.  I’ll go with their managers Collins and Bannister.  Some in the NL think Maddon and the Cubs are really the surprise team and they’re kind of right … but I maintain the Mets are even more so.
• Comeback Players of the Year: I’ll go with Harvey in the NL, Fielder in the AL; nobody’s giving A-Rod an award.

Sal Perez is the best value contract in the game right now. photo via si.com

Inspired by Steve Adams‘ MLBTR chat on 11/18/14, I thought this was a fascinating topic.  What players have the best value contracts in the game right now?

For several years, the answer here was Evan Longoria, who signed a 6yr/$17.5M contract in 2008 and promptly put up three straight seasons north of 7.0 bWAR.  We’re into the option years on that original deal, which are still pretty affordable, and Longoria did get a 9-figure extension, so he’s not entirely in this discussion any longer.  Call him the “godfather” of ridiculously good value contracts.

Using the obvious websites (baseball-reference.com and Cots’ salary database now at BaseballProspectus.com), lets take a look at some candidates.  Note; I refer to a “valuation” of $6M per win above replacement as a way to “value” production.  There are some known limitations to equating salary to this figure, and there are others who estimate it even higher, but $6M per is still a decent estimate to use as a quick estimate of a player’s “monetary” production on the field.

Note: we are NOT including the litany of pre-arb players who are putting up huge seasons.  This is mostly trying to focus on those players who have signed for affordable contracts but who are delivering huge value.  Thus players like Josh Donaldson, Anthony Rendon, Kyle Seager, Corey Kluber and Starling Marte are not included here.

Candidate contracts: I’ve arranged these in my opinion of the order of value:

• Sal Perez: 5 years/$7M (2012-16), plus 2017-19 club options worth just a *combined* $14.75M.  This for a guy who has made the all-star team and won the catcher Gold Glove two years running.  Wow.
• Chris Sale: 5 years/$32.5M (2013-17), plus 2018-19 options of $12.5M and $13.5M.  This for a guy who led the AL this year in ERA+ and has received significant Cy Young votes 3 years running.  His bWAR in the last three seasons: 5.9, 6.9 and 6.6.  That’s crazy.
• Jose Altuve: 4 years/$12.5M (2014-17), plus 2018-19 options at $6M and $6.5M.   Two-time all-star, led the AL in both hits and batting average in 2014.   Just put up a 6.6 bWAR season … and the Astros got it for just $1.25M in salary.
• Jonathan Lucroy: 5 years/$11M (2012-16), plus 2017 option at $5.25M.  this late bloomer signed an incredibly affordable deal, then had a break out 2014 season where he posted a 6.7 bWAR, made the All-Star team, finished 4th in the MVP voting and should have won the gold glove as the best framing catcher in the game.   His total salary for the remaining three years of his contract is just $12.25M.
• Madison Bumgarner.  Current contract: 5 years/$35M (2013-17), plus 2018-19 options at $12M each.  Bumgarner was 4th in Cy Young voting this year with a 4 bWAR season but (as we all know) dominated the playoffs, single-handedly handing the Giants their 3rd World Series title in the last 5 seasons.  A 4-war season is worth at least $24M on the open market these days, but he earned just $3.75M this year.  His options can vest and increase with certain achievements, but even at their max $16M value he’s still a massive bargain.
• Yasiel Puig: 7 years/$42M (2012-18).  Everyone thought the Dodgers were crazy to commit $42M to an unknown; now it looks like a massive bargain.  For $2M salaries the last two years he’s put up 4.9 and 5.4 bWAR seasons.
• Julio Teheran: 6 years/$32.4M (2014-19).  This contract gets expensive later, but in 2014 he was paid just $800k to put up a 4.0 win season.  If Teheran continues to be the #2 pitcher he showed this year, the Braves have great value on their hands.
• Jose Quintana: 5 years/$21M (2014-18).  Thanks to the crummy team he toils for, Quintana’s exploits have gone unnoticed.  But he’s now got a career 117 ERA+ and has reached 200 innings both of the last two seasons and is signed for a song going forward.  Its no wonder analysts scoff when his name is mentioned in trade talks.
• Michael Brantley: 4 years/$25M (2014-17), plus 2018 option of $11M).  This is preliminary, but based on his 7 bWAR season in 2014 (for just a $1.5M salary), this could be a huge bargain.  Is he a flash in the 2014 pan or is he for real?  If he’s for real, the Indians have a fantastic value going forward.
• Ben Zobrist: 4 years/$18M (2010-13), plus 2014-15 options of $7 and $7.5M.  This was the poster child for years of affordable contracts (once Evan Longoria got his extension).  He’s averaged 4.75 bWAR over the past four seasons while playing six or seven different positions for the Rays.  Even in the final 2015 season at $7.5M, he’s projecting at 4 bWAR, still a significant under-value.  Keith Law calls  him “the best contract value” in MLB history; maybe he should be higher on this list.
• Mike Trout: 6 years/$144.5M (2015-20).  No, a $33.25M salary in 2020 isn’t really a bargain, but the Angels are still getting the best player in baseball for $1M in 2014 and $5.25M in 2015.  Even if Trout declines to “just” a 6 bWAR player for the next 6 years … the Angels are still coming out ahead on the $6M/WAR evaluation technique.
• John Lackey: 1yr/mlb minimum (2015).  He had a quirk in his previous contract that vested a MLB-minimum year thanks to an injury a couple years ago, so the Cardinals get the benefit of a veteran innings-eating 100 ERA+ starter at the league minimum.  Nothing to sneeze at, even if its just a one year contract.  On the open market you have to think he’s worth $8-$10M/season.
• Steve Pearce: 1 year/$850k (2014).  This isn’t really a true candidate like the other players here, but Pearce’s story is worth noting.  He was DFA’d and *released* in April and re-signed a couple days later, but still posted a 6 bWAR season for Baltimore this year.  He’s arbitration eligible for 2015 but how far could his salary really rise after an 850k salary?
• Jonathan Singleton: 5yrs/$10M plus 3 club options.  He may not profile as being worth this contract now … but if he lives up anywhere close to expectations, those later option years at $2-$2.5M are going to look pretty darn good.  No wonder the players union howled when he signed this deal.
• Adam Jones: 4yrs/$62M is nothing to shake a stick at, even if his “gold glove” defense is rather suspect.
• Edwin Encarnacion: 3 years/$29M (2013-15), plus 2016 club option of $10M.  Yeah that’s a pretty good deal.
• Jose Bautista: 5 years/$65M (2011-15), plus 2016 option of $14M.   $14M for a guy who probably would have gotten 33% more had he been a FA two years ago.

How about the same analysis for the Nats?  The clear best value players on the team are Anthony Rendon and Tanner Roark.  Both Jordan Zimmermann and Doug Fister delivered pretty good WAR/pay value.  Denard Span just gave us a 3.6 bWAR season for $6.5M in salary; a pretty good deal.  But none of these contracts really contend with the above list.

Did I miss anyone obvious?  Do you agree with my rankings above?

2/24/16: Dan Szymborski posted his own updated version of this topic here: http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/14832664/carlos-correa-tops-list-baseball-best-assets-most-team-friendly-contracts-mlb .  He goes by surplus projected WAR.  Carlos Correa #1, Trout #2, then a bunch of pre-arb high-end rookies.

Kershaw cleans up the BBWAA awards. Photo via wiki.

Here’s who I predicted would win.

•     NL MVP: Kershaw
•     NL Cy Young: Kershaw
•     NL Rookie: deGrom
•     NL Manager: Bochy
•     AL MVP: Trout
•     AL Cy Young: Felix
•     AL Rookie: Abreu
•     AL Manager: Showalter

Here’s who actually won, along with some links to other awards

•     NL MVP: Kershaw comfortably.  Stanton 2nd, McCutchen 3rd.
•     NL Cy Young: Kershaw unanimously.
•     NL Rookie: Jacob deGrom, named first on 26 of 30 ballots.  Hamilton 2nd.  Surprised he won so handily.
•     NL Manager: our own Matt Williams, by a large margin (18 of 30 first place votes).  Bruce Bochy, who likely wrapped up his Hall of Fame candidacy with his 4th pennant and third WS title in 2014, finished a distant third.
•     AL MVP: Mike Trout, unanimously.  About time.  Martinez 2nd, Brantley 3rd.  Abreu was 4th, quite a showing.
•     AL Cy Young: Corey Kluber in a close race over Felix Hernandez.
•     AL Rookie: Jose Abreu, unanimously.   Shoemaker 2nd, Betances 3rd.  Tanaka 5th; I would have had him higher.
•     AL Manager: Buck Showalter in a romp (25 of 30 first place votes)

End result predicting 2014’s BBWAA awards: 6 for 8.  My worst prediction season on record.  2010: 8 for 8.  2011: 8 for 8.  2012: 7 for 8.  2013: 8 for 8.  I swear I only looked up these links because I was re-categorizing posts and adding in a filter for “awards” related posts :-).  Usually its a bit easier to predict the BBWAA electorate in these awards; I suppose that the general evolution of the writers is slowly bringing more statistical analysis into the mix, meaning that the “dinosaur” method of voting is heading out the window.  Probably for the better.

Links to other awards, some of which I used to try and track/predict but no longer.

• Gold Gloves; no love for the Nats, though Span and LaRoche were finalists.
• Fielding Bible: no one from the Nats.
• Silver Sluggers: Desmond and Rendon both winners.
• Comeback Players of the Year: Casey McGehee and former Nats farmhand Chris Young.
• Links to a slew of other awards are on my Off-Season Baseball Calendar.

No more excuses; Trout has more than earned his MVP. Photo Gary Vasquez/US Presswire via espn.com

First draft of this post: May 8th, 2014, just 5 weeks into the season, with the announcements of MLB players of the month and early MVP watch columns from national baseball writers .  

My Predictions:

• NL MVP: Kershaw over Stanton, McCutchen and Lucroy
• NL Cy Young: Kershaw over Cueto and Wainwright
• NL Rookie: deGrom over Hamilton
• NL Manager: Bochy over Roenicke
• AL MVP: Trout over Victor Martinez, Cano, Abreu and Cruz.
• AL Cy Young: Felix, barely over Kluber, Sale, others.
• AL Rookie: Abreu over Tanaka, Shoemaker, Ventura, and others.
• AL Manager: Showalter over McLendon, Yost.

So, how did the major awards evolve this year?  Read below for a running diary of the front runners for each major award.  It makes for a fascinating read of the season.  By my sense, the awards kind of went like this from April to September:

• NL MVP: Tulowitzki early, then Stanton, maybe McCutchen, then Kershaw, back to Stanton and finally Kershaw with Stanton’s injury.
• NL Cy Young: Cueto at the start, Jose Fernandez til he got hurt, then Bumgarner, Wainwright, then clearly Kershaw.
• NL Rookie: Chris Owings, then Wong, then Hamilton, maybe Polanco, suddenly deGrom.
• AL MVP: Abreu then Bautista, Encarnacion, Cruz, then Trout, no doubt.  Everyone else racing for #2.
• AL Cy Young: Sonny Grey, then Scherzer, then Buehrle, then Felix, maybe Kluber, down to wire.
• AL Rookie: Abreu, then Tanaka, Ventura, then clearly Abreu with Tanaka’s injury.

Ahead of this post, some non MLB-affiliated awards have been given out.

• Matt Williams was named The Sporting News’ NL Manager of the Year, which readers here probably laugh at considering the mess he made of his pitching decisions in the NLDS.
• Craig Kimbrel and Greg Holland won the NL and AL reliever of the year awards, named after Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera respectively.
• The Gold Gloves were announced  yesterday: you’d have to be crazy to try to predict those 🙂

This year, instead of printing links to writers early and mid-season predictions, I’ll just throw those links into the monthly reviews for context.   This post is more like a season-long diary of the evolution of these awards; the sections were written in each month as the season progressed.

April:

Players-of-the-month in April do not very frequently win MVPs, Cy Youngs or Rookie of the Year awards, but we may see a surprise in 2014 thanks to some big-time performances.  But here’s where we stand after the first month.

Opinions this month: Corcoran on early candidates.

• MVP candidates: Troy Tulowitzki, Giancarlo Stanton in the NL.  Colorado’s Charlie Blackmon deserves mention for his amazing April.  Jose Abreu and Jose Bautista in the AL (with apologies to perennial contenders Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout, both of whom started slow).
  
• Cy Young candidates: Johnny Cueto and Jose Fernandez in the NL.  Sonny Grey and Max Scherzer in the AL.
• Rookie of the year candidates: Chris Owings in the NL, Jose Abreu in the AL.  Masahiro Tanaka could make some noise in the AL though for sure.

May:

Opinions this month: Corcoran’s musings throughout the month.  Stark’s “First Quarter” awards.  BaseballMusing’s Cy Young Tracker analysis.  Scott Lindholm‘s two month predictor.

• MVP candidates: Still Tulowitzki in the NL (he has a full 1.0 WAR lead midway through the month and had accumulated 4 WAR just six weeks into the season!  Even more impressive; he’s hitting ABOVE .500 at home thus far), but Stanton has also been on fire (as my fantasy team can attest).  Yasiel Puig may be a lightening rod, but he’s also one of the best players in the NL and has put his name into the NL MVP conversation by winning player of the month..   Jody Donaldson has been on fire in the AL and is getting some notice, but also so has Nelson Cruz, who may be the best FA signing of the off-season.  Abreu went on the D/L.  Bautista remains the best offensive WAR player in the AL.  But by months’ end Trout was near the top of the WAR list despite a “slump.”  Edwin Encarnacion cannot stop hitting and is leading Toronto to a big lead in the AL East, and won player of the month in the AL for May, but i’m doubtful he’ll eventually figure in the MVP race.
  
• Cy Young candidates: Cueto still leads in the NL when early front-runner Fernandez goes down to TJ Surgery, despite the Nats tagging him for 8 runs in a mid-May game.  Adam Wainwright is quietly having an excellent season, as is Zack Greinke.  Jeff Samardzija might be the best pitcher of them all but still has zero wins thanks to the vagarities of the Win statistic (that and his team’s purposelly awful offense).  Madison Bumgarner won May pitcher of the month, but doesn’t seem like he’s nearly as dominant as the other pitchers mentioned here.  Lastly we need to mention Tim Hudson‘s great start.  Scherzer and Tanaka still involved in the AL race, but Mark Buehrle‘s turn-back-the-clock season is gaining notice and Houston’s Dallas Keuchel is having an amazing season for the 110 loss Astros.   Meanwhile Felix Hernandez is quietly dominant, posting an 8-1 record out in Seattle.  And Yu Darvish is basically unhittable (as the Nats learned in late May).
  
• Rookie of the year candidates: Owings remains in the lead in the NL among little competition pending expected mid-season callups (Corcoran’s May #2 is Atlanta’s David Hale, who was demoted to the bullpen after 4 starts when Gavin Floyd was ready to go), but Kolten Wong‘s showing has his name in the discussion (he was May’s MLB rookie of the month).   Abreu hit the D/L (and his numbers may be impressive from a power stand point but little else), while Tanaka continues his dominance and takes over the AL lead.  Meanwhile the amazing arm of Yordano Ventura pokes his head into this race … and then he got hit with injury.  But the new leader in the AL RoY clubhouse may very well be Houston’s George Springer, who hit seven homers in 7 games in late May and is on pace for 40 as a rookie.
  

June

Opinions: Lindholm’s early Rookie of the Year look.  Lindholm’s Cy Young Predictions (except that he focuses entirely on advanced pitching stats that, lets face it, the voter-base doesn’t care about).  Corcoran take on the Rookies.  Corcoran update on MVP race.  Passan’s half-year awards column.  Brisbee mid-season AL Awards and mid-season NL-Awards (which he thinks are stupid :-).  MLB June Rookies of the month announcement.

• MVP candidates: Still Tulowitzki in the lead in the NL, though Stanton probably finishes in the top 3 thanks to his first ever healthy season enabling him to chase 50 homers.  Puig has cooled a bit.  Jonathan Lucroy has thrown his name into top-5 consideration thanks to his great offensive season tacked on top of his great defensive prownesses.  And last years’ MVP Andrew McCutchen has thrown his name into the ring with a great June and the MLB player of the month award.  In the AL, Trout’s consistency has giving him the lead over AL east bashers Bautista and Cruz (and he won MLB’s MVP for June).   Tanaka will probably get top 5 votes but won’t win; see the Cy Young section for a statement on his “rookie” season.  One can only hope that a down year (thus far) for Cabrera will finally eliminate the narrative-driven voting for him over Trout that has occurred the last two years; Trout’s numbers right now eclipse his numbers in his first two years.  Meanwhile you have to start giving Jose Altuve some props: at the half-way point of the season he’s leading the AL in Batting Average, Hits and Stolen Bases, each by a considerable margin.  I’d have him in my top5.
• Cy Young candidates: Wainwright has overtaken Cueto for the NL lead right now, but if Kershaw keeps throwing scoreless innings (he’s on a streak of 28 as of the time of this writing), he’ll move into the lead (MLB just gave Kershaw pitcher of the month for June).   Julio Teheran probably earns a top-5 spot thanks to his breakout season.  And one Jake Arrieta has added his name to the mix thanks to his pretty amazing turnaround in Chicago.  In the AL, Tanaka still leads King Felix, with Texas-based hurlers Darvish and Keuchel knocking on the door but slightly cooling.  But Felix was named AL’s June pitcher of the month and would be a no-brainer if he didn’t have the West Coast anti-bias working against him.
• Rookie of the year candidates:  In the NL, no candidates are really distinguishing themselves. Right now Owings remains in the WAR lead over Billy Hamilton (who was named Rookie of the Month for June and is in the lead right now) but neither player is that inspiring.   However the eventual favorite may have finally gotten his callup in Gregory Polanco.  Meanwhile the AL race almost certainly is looking like a 1-2 International FA contest between Tanaka and Abreu, with Tanaka easily winning right now (though Abreu won June’s Rookie of the Month award).  There’s almost no reason to mention anyone else, which is unfair to Houston’s budding stars George Springer and Jon Singleton.
• Comeback Player of the Year: This award always flies under the radar, but we have a couple of decent candidates getting some mention.  In the NL,  Casey McGehee was run out of the MLB thanks to injuries and awful hitting in 2012; after a dominant year in Japan he’s having a nice bounce-back for Miami.  And, after just 8 awful starts in 2013, LA’s Josh Beckett is looking pretty dominant so far this year.  Tim Hudson‘s come-back year after his gruesome ankle injury earns some mentions.   The AL version is harder to find candidates: Passan mentions Joakim Soria and Phil Hughes as early candidates.  I like Hughes; 4-14 with a 5+ ERA last year who is having success this year.
• Managers of the Year: at the halfway point, we can start to see some clarity in the Manager of the Year (also known as the “guy in charge of the team that has the most shocking W/L record award.”  Right now we’re we’re looking at Bob Melvin, manager of Oakland and their best-in-the-majors 81-game record in the AL and (easily right now) Ron Roenicke, who is leading the surprising Milwaukee Brewers to the best record in the NL at the halfway point.

July

Opinions: Stark “First Half Winners.”  Jonah Keri “Midseason Report.”  Schoenfield’s “NL MVP is wide open” post.

• MVP candidates: In the NL, Colorado’s waning playoff chances are knocking down Tulowitzki’s chances, while Stanton continues to produce staggering offensive numbers.   Meanwhile McCutchen is coming on strong and may lead Pittsburgh on a 2nd half run.  In the AL, the Angels success finally ends the 3-year running narrative based arguments that have prevented Trout from winning an MVP.  At this point, if he doesn’t win, its because some bloc of writers has conspired against him.  Batista and Cruz continue to be 2-3 on my ballot.  At the end of the month, Trout leads the majors in bWAR with Tulowitzki not far behind.
• Cy Young candidates: In the NL, it is looking like Wainwright versus Kershaw.  Wainwright in the lead now, but Kershaw’s dominance may carry him to the title by the end of the year.  In the AL; Felix Hernandez has overtaken Tanaka, who hit the D/L with a partially torn UCL that may force him into Tommy John.  Chris Sale has put his name into contention as the #3 candidate right now.  Kershaw/Fernandez are 1/2 in bWAR at the end of the month.
• Rookie of the year candidates:  In the NL, Hamilton still holds off Polanco, but the Pittsburgh rookie has been great since his call up.  Check back on this race later.  In the AL, Tanaka’s D/L trip also may cost him his unanimous Rookie of the Year award, which now goes to the 1-A candidate Abreu.  No one else is close; If I had to guess who was #3 in this race, i’d go Springer.
• Comeback Player of the Year: Still looking like Hudson and Hughes for now.
• Managers of the Year: Still Roenicke and Melvin for now.  There’s no other obvious candidates.

August

Opinions: Calcaterra on who is MVP.  A list of most improved players by WAR in mid-August. (which should be a good way to talk about Comeback players, except that it really is just highlighting former role players who are having great  years).  Paul Swydan talked about the NL MVP vote in mid-August.  Keith Law’s mid-august preview of the awards.  Crasnick’s 8/25/14 chat talking about AL Manager of the Year candidates.  Bowden’s rookie Rankings from late august.  HardballTalkDaily video says the Rookie races are pretty clear cut on 8/29/14.

• MVP candidates: Jayson Werth was named July NL player of the month, but seems like a long shot to get anything other than 5th place MVP votes.   Meanwhile previous leaders Tulowitzki AND now McCutchen are both on the D/L and missing at least a month each, so questions abound.  Is Puig the front runner now?  Stanton?  A pitcher?  At this point it may end up being Kershaw thanks to some deficiencies in the cases of both these healthy candidates, except that Kershaw missed quite a few starts and many voters won’t even give him the Cy Young nod as a result.  And there’s the small fact that apparently sportswriters are starting to place Barry Bonds-level hatred on Puig (I heard a 3rd-party story that does not flatter Puig in the least in terms of his attitude and self-opinion, so this does not shock me).  Abreu earned his second AL Player of the Month but seems like a long shot to beat out Trout at this point; the Angels seem set to make the playoffs, removing the “narrative” that has prevented Trout from being the MVP in years past.  In fact, the 2nd best candidate in the AL may very well be Felix Hernandez, who won’t win on some ballots because he’s a pitcher.  Alex Gordon is starting to get some MVP notice, thanks to his leadership on the suddenly-playoff-bound Royals.  I see him as a good top-5 candidate.
• Cy Young candidates: In the NL, Kershaw has earned his second NL pitcher of the month award and (despite missing several starts) seems like a lock to win another Cy Young award.  Meanwhile in the AL, Grey has earned another pitcher of the month award, but Hernandez and Sale seem to be 1-2 in this race as long as Tanaka stays on the shelf.   Corey Kluber has put together a great season, but he’s chasing Hernandez for 2nd place right now.
  
• Rookie of the year candidates:  In the NL, Mets starter Jacob deGrom has put his name into the hat thanks to a slew of dominant starts, and was just named July rookie of the month.  In a weak field, he could push to a victory.  But no sooner did he win the monthly award than go down to injury, likely cementing the award for Hamilton.  In the AL, not only was Abreu named rookie of the month, he was also named player of the month.  The longer Tanaka stays on the D/L, the more Abreu solidifies his hold on this award.  Brandon Shoemaker quietly has a 13-4 season for the Angels but may not even broach the top 5 in voting, thanks to the huge glut of quality AL rookies this year.
• Comeback Player of the Year: Still looking like Hudson and Hughes for now.
• Managers of the Year: In the AL, surprising runs by the Mariners, Orioles and Royals have their three managers (respectively, Lloyd McClendon, Buck Showalter and Ned Yost) will get some attention.  In the NL, I still think Milwaukee’s turn-around keeps Ron Roenicke in the lead. 

September

You know its starting to get close to silly season; lots of opinion pieces start popping up right after labor day.: Brisbee’s “handicapping” of the NL awards on 9/1/14 and the same for the AL awards two days later.  Schoenfield’s Heyward for MVP article 9/2/14.  NL awards video from Schoenfield 9/2/14.  USAtoday’s early Sept Awards preview.  Jim Bowden pops up for Executive of the Year predictions.  Schoenfield extolling McCutchen’s credentials in mid September.  Cory DiBenedetto at GammonsDaily talking about the AL RoY and then the NL RoY.  Passan’s late Sept award column.  Jayson Stark’s final prediction column.  Anthony Castrovince’s prediction column.  Schoenfield’s “best rookies” column.

• MVP candidates: In the NL, it was looking more and more like Stanton’s continued massive offensive season was driving the narrative towards his getting the MVP.  However, an awful-looking HBP likely ended Stanton’s season on 9/11/14 … will those lost two weeks prevent him from taking the top spot now?  It seems so; I’m predicting Kershaw wins both MVP and Cy Young.  A pitcher hasn’t gotten the NL Cy Young in more than 40  years.  The NL WAR leader-board shows the problem with using WAR as a projection tool of MVP (as Brisbee’s column points out: there’s just no way that NL positional player bWAR leader Jason Heyward is getting the MVP no matter how much you believe in defensive stats.  Buster Posey‘s huge summer has put his name into the hat for top-5 candidates.  Speaking of top-5 candidates, do you put Anthony Rendon into that discussion?  In the AL, there’s just no way Trout doesn’t get the award this year, so we’ll discuss runners-up later on.  Brisbee seems to think Robinson Cano will somehow sneak into the discussion but I don’t think so.  Victor Martinez‘s excellent/no-frills offensive season should have him getting some top-5 love.  Michael Brantley looks to earn some top 5 votes too.
• Cy Young candidates: In the NL, Kershaw has solidified his hold on the award.  The better question may be whether he also wins the MVP.  In the AL I think its safe to say Hernandez-Kluber go 1-2, though a September swoon may cost Felix votes.  It could get really close.  Expecially after Felix got pounded on 9/23/14 in his 2nd to last start. 
  
• Rookie of the year candidates: In a weak NL field, DeGrom’s fantastic 2nd half seems to be pushing him over the top of the obvious candidate for most of the  year in Hamilton.   Kyle Hendricks may get top 5 votes.  In the AL, it has to be Abreu, likely unanimously unless a couple of NYC writers do the homer-vote for Tanaka.
• Comeback Player of the Year: Still looking like Hudson and Hughes, but this award is unpredictable.  Passan’s late Sept column points out a couple of NL candidates to consider, since Hudson’s ERA cratered in the 2nd half.  Casey McGhee returned from Japanese exile to have a great season, and Justin Morneau has come back from the DFA heap to nearly lead the NL in batting.  In the AL one should also consider former Nats AAA pitcher Chris Young, who has absolutely come back from nowhere to stay healthy an entire  year.  He should write the Nats a thank-you card for giving him a paycheck to rehab on our dime.
• Managers of the Year:  I can’t see the writers giving Manager of the year awards to a team like Washington (which was expected to win) nor the Angels (which has a monster payroll and the best player in the game).  It may be someone like Bruce Bochy in the NL, who has overcome the loss of his two marquee pitchers and a slew of curious signings to keep the Giants in playoff contention.  In the AL, perhaps Showalter deserves some mention for what he’s done in Baltimore … but then again, have we ever seen an AL east meltdown top to bottom like we’re seeing this year?   More and more i’m liking what Showalter is doing with Baltimore and a relatively unknown pitching staff and a ton of injuries. 
  

Jeter waves to the fans in his last home game. AP photo via abcnews.com

In June of 2013, in the midst of the Mariano Rivera retirement tour, I posted about one-team Hall of Famers and whether they were a dying breed in modern baseball.  I figured that they were, that free agency had ruined the iconic “one team” home-town legend that we grew up knowing (especially in DC, with Cal Ripken Jr. just up the road).

Now that Derek Jeter has wound down own his 2014 retirement tour, and the fact that we’ve seen some recent player movement that has eliminated some HoF candidates from being one-teamers, I thought this was a good topic to pick back up.

Here’s a quick glance at the landscape of one-team Hall of Fame candidates in the game today.

• Recently Retired One-team Hall of Fame locks: Chipper Jones, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter

You have to think each of these three guys is a first ballot Hall of Famer, and each was a one-team guy.

• Recently retired one-team Hall of Fame candidates: Todd Helton

I’m not sure Helton will make the Hall; if Larry Walker can’t get in because people think his numbers were inflated by Colorado’s home park, then Helton will be in the same boat.  His embarrassing, ridiculous DUI arrest in mid 2013 while driving to get lottery tickets (despite the fact that he has more than $160M in career earnings just in salary alone) certainly won’t help his case.

• Active HoF one-team promising candidates: Joe Mauer, Justin Verlander, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Dustin Pedroia, Clayton Kershaw, Felix Hernandez, Andrew McCutchen, Buster Posey, Mike Trout

If Verlander finished out his contract just being a 14-11 guy each year, he’d probably end up with 250 wins to go with his Cy Youngs, MVP, and Rookie awards.  People will remember how good a hitter Mauer is when the time comes.  Yes, I think Utley is on track to be a hall of famer; he’s been hurt for so long that people have forgotten how good he is.  No I don’t think Rollins is a HoFamer right now, but he deserves to be in this category not the “borderline” category.  Now, not all of these guys are guarantees to stick with their current teams (especially McCutchen, who eventually cashes in on a big contract that Pittsburgh cannot afford), but for now this is the list.  Almost all of these guys managed to be excellent players for huge-payroll teams, meaning that they can easily finish their careers without having to move on.

Yeah I put Mike Trout on this list.  Did you know that Trout already has as much career bWAR (28.3) by age 22 that Paul Konerko has for his entire 18-year career??  If Trout flamed out before the age of 30 he’d have the same case for inclusion that Sandy Koufax had, and he’d be in.

I cannot see the likes of Rollins, Utley or Pedroia moving teams at this point; do you view Pedroia as a HoFame candidate?  He’s got more than 40 bWAR by the age of 30, an MVP vote, two rings and a bunch of All-Star and Golden Gloves.

• Active Borderline HoF one-team guys who need to step it up: David Wright, Evan Longoria, Troy Tulowitzki, Joey Votto, Cole Hamels, Adam Wainwright, Jordan Zimmermann
  

These are all perennial all-stars, kings of the game, but none of them really screams out “Hall of Famer” right now.  I may be slightly down on these guys (especially Hamels, who might be more than borderline right now).  I’ve thrown Zimmermann in there thanks to his second stellar season in a row and his no-hitter; he’s likely to have another top 5 Cy Young finish in 2014 and with a few more such seasons he may put himself into the conversation.  Of course, the odds are that he departs the Nats after 2015, so he may be off the list anyway.

• Active One-team players who have taken themselves out of HoF candidacy lately: Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Braun, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Jered Weaver, Ryan Howard

I used to think Zimmerman was on track, especially after his monster 2009 season.  Now I think he’s destined to be just a middle of the order solid hitter on teams with better hitters surrounding him.  Think Scott Rolen.  Braun may be one of the best players in the NL, but getting caught with PEDs not once but twice will prevent him from ever being enshrined no matter what kind of career he puts together.  The fall-off of the San Francisco duo of pitchers speaks for itself; what the heck happened to Lincecum?  Similarly, Weaver now looks like a guy who peaked during his expected peak years and now is settling into being a slightly better-than-average pitcher.  Fair?  Maybe not, but his ERA+ for 2014 is 104; not exactly Kershaw-territory.

• Recently traded/free agent one-team HoF promising candidates: Albert Pujols, Ichiro Suzuki, Robinson Cano,  Justin Morneau, David Price, Jon Lester, Prince Fielder

I’m not saying all these guys are HoF locks right now, just that they’re top players who have made big moves recently to break up a string of years with one team.

Conclusion?   I think there’s plenty of one-team candidates out there.  So no, one-team hall-of-famers aren’t going to be a dying breed.  Teams are locking up their marquee players to long-term contracts earlier and earlier, meaning the likelihood of having big-name one-team players present their cases to the voters is that much higher in the modern baseball climate.

Did I miss anyone worth talking about?

Stanton blasting another 450-foot homer. Photo unk via rantsports.com

(Standard disclaimer; this is ranting about my fake baseball team.  If you don’t play fantasy, might as well skip this).

I’m really beginning to question my abilities in fantasy sports.  Despite being deep into baseball and knowing random things off the top of my head that should be of use in fantasy (which managers are more inclined to do closer by committee, which ball parks are skewed offensively and thus players who play there may be at an advantage), I struggle year after year.

This year, thanks to an unfortunately timed meltdown (I lost a week 0-10-2 after having been ahead early in the week), I dropped just out of the playoff spots in my league (top 6 make the playoffs out of a 12 team league).  But the ills of my team were seen early.  Once again, I was plagued by under performing players and a poor draft that left me churning the waiver wire.  By the end of the season I had made 58 of the 65 allotted moves in a failed attempt to improve enough to sneak into the playoffs (where honestly, I would have been a tough out; I can grind out 6-5-1 wins with the best of them).

So, what happened?  Here’s a link to the post talking about my initially drafted team.  And here’s a matrix of my 21 initially drafted players, their performance on the year and a note indicating whether or not they over- or under-achieved (bold means on the team at  year’s end, red = badly under performed, green = greatly over-performed).

So, what happened?

My first two picks didn’t underperform “badly,” but were not the super stars you need to take hold of a league.  I didn’t really like Adam Jones or Adrian Beltre at the draft, and despite some hot streaks they’ve been disappointments.  Beltre got hurt in camp and missed games at the beginning of the season.  My #3 pick Alex Rios I finally gave up on and waived; his seasonal rank of 179 belies what he’s done the last two months (closer to the 900 ranked range).  It’s never a good sign when your #3 pick gets waived thanks to performance (and not injury) reasons.

Giancarlo Stanton is my one major “win” out of the draft; a 4th round pick who likely will finish in the top 5 of stats on the season.  At the time of this writing, he was trailing only Mike Trout in terms of fantasy rankings for offensive players.  He single-handedly carried my team offensively for weeks on end and is a large reason that my team offense was 1st in homers and 3rd in RBI.   I feel vindicated here: I suffered through at least two injury-riddled Stanton seasons in the past after having drafted him highly, and he’ll have the same issue next year; he’ll likely be a top-5 pick with a huge injury risk on his head.

My two big-time closers did not disappoint: both Janssen and Holland performed as expected and led me to be 5th in team saves and  have a 14-7-1 record in the category on the year.  This is a big lesson learned for me; you can get by with just two big-time closers and be successful in this category.  Of course, I wanted more closers but got unlucky; my #3 closer Jim Henderson suddenly and without warning was yanked from the role on opening day.  Another team vultured his replacement (Francisco “K-rod” Rodriguez); all he’s done is pitch lights out all year and is 6th in the league in saves.  That should have been my 3rd closer.  That was a disappointment.  I tried just one waiver-wire closer grab (Chad Qualls for Houston) and despite picking correctly, Qualls went weeks without save opportunities so I dumped him after two weeks looking for more starter quality.

Lets talk about the god-awful positional player issues I had in the draft: Mark Trumbo started out white-hot, fractured his foot and missed months.  Aaron Hill did not come closer to living up to the hype of fantasy analysts.  Shane Victorino was on and off the D/L all year.  And poor Brandon Belt fractured his thumb, fought his way back and then got hit in the head during BP and still remains on the concussion D/L.

Of the Starting Pitchers I gambled on: Shelby Miller struggled all  year, Danny Salazar got demoted, as did Tony Cingrani.  Chris Archer did not produce at fantasy levels and Jake Odorizzi struggled early and was dropped (I eventually picked him back up).  I only kept two drafted starters on the team all year (Ryu and  Hudson) and frankly Hudson was so bad for so long that I came pretty close to dumping him.  That basically means that my “wait on starters” strategy was a complete failure, if I’m only keeping ONE decent starter the whole  year.

So, for the 2nd straight year I cycled the waiver wires.  Here’s some of the guys I went through:

• Starters: Scheppers, Kluber, Eovaldi, Skaggs, Kennedy, Strohman, Peralta, Montero, Keuchel, Garcia, Beckett,  Wood, Leake, Despaigne, Bauer, Liriano, Duffy, Hellickson, Cole, Smyly
• Relievers: Qualls
• Catchers: Mesoraco, Ruiz
• 1B: Francisco, Adams, Alonso, Singleton, Napoli, Carter, Duda
• 2B: Walker, Prado, Gennett, Wong
• SS: Aybar, Escobar, Baez, Betts
• 3B: Castellanos, Seager, Arenado
• OF: Rasmus, Parra, Stubbs, Crawford, Ozuna, Eaton, Reddick, Aoki

Scheppers I took a gamble on b/c his numbers were so good as a reliever; mistake.  He got shelled opening day and soon was on the D/L.   A number of these pitchers were decent moves and pitched well for a while (especially Josh Beckett and Marcus Strohman).  The biggest failure here was dumping Corey Kluber after he got hit hard opening day: He’s turned into the 16th best fantasy performer all year, a 2nd round talent.  That was a huge mistake.  I liked Eovaldi‘s peripherals (lots of Ks) but he struggled with runners and his ERA/WHIP were inflated all year.  Skaggs got hurt, Kennedy was ineffective.  I got great value for a while out of Keuchel, but after a good mid-summer he tailed off badly.  Garcia made like one start before returning to the D/L.  Josh Beckett was a great waiver wire pickup for a while, but he too got hurt and remains on the D/L today.  Alex Wood was a great find.  I snaked Gerrit Cole off the D/L just before he came back on but he contributed little.  Most of my other experiments were far too inconsistent week-to-week to trust (see Trevor Bauer, Despaigne, Mike Leake, etc).

As mentioned before, I only tried to gamble on one closer waiver wire pickup thanks to the solid two starters that I had from draft day.  Most of the available closers on the waiver wire were in committee situations and couldn’t be trusted anyway.

I worked 1B, 2B, and 3B hard.  At one point I was trying to engineer a 3B trade, having Seager while he was hot and Arenado after he came off the D/L.  But my potential trade partners badly low-balled me for Beltre (offering guys who were worth far less than Beltre was) and suddenly Seager dropped off a cliff, making his trade value useless.  Eventually I dumped both.

1B pickups Napoli, Duda and especially Carter turned out to be huge winners.  Once again proving my point that some positions are just so deep they’re not worth drafting.  Same with outfielders to a certain extent; I had Ozuna all  year and he’s turned out to be well worth it.

My season’s end Fantasy team after all this waiver wire churning.  Bold are original, red are waiver wire:

• C: Santana
• 1B: Carter, Duda
• 2B: Baez, Prado
• SS: Betts
• 3B: Beltre
• OF: Stanton, Jones, Ozuna
• SP: Hudson, Ryu, Odorizzi, Cole, Hellickson, Wood, Duffy, Liriano, Smyly
• RP: Jansen, Holland

That’s a lot of red.

Lessons Learned for Next Year

1. You only need two big-time closers to compete.  Spend draft picks in the 5th and 6th rounds, try to get a third closer later on and you’ll do fine.  You must do a better job on the waiver wire though trying to grab closers if you want them.
2. There’s always 1B talent on waivers.  Do not over-spend on 1B.
3. My strategy of over-loading on mediocre starters just doesn’t seem to be working.  I was 3rd in wins and 5th in Ks, but 8th in ERA, dead last in losses and 11th in whip.   Meanwhile the #1 team this year went with an uber-pitching strategy (over-drafting starters and ending up with Kershaw, Sale, Felix Hernandez as well as several top closers) and he just dominated pitching.  Despite having a ton of starters, he managed to be 4th in Wins AND be 2nd in Whip.  I think he’s got a good strategy.  And i’m sure people will try to emulate it next year.
4. Do not sweat churning and burning waiver wire picks early on; you may just end up with a monster surprise player on the year.  This was the 1st place team’s strategy and it netted him Charlie Blackmon and a couple of extra closers.  Two of the top 10 starters on the year were waiver wire guys: Corey Kluber and Garrett Richard.
5. Do not hesitate grabbing big-name call-ups.  I missed out on more than a couple guys that I would have grabbed but hesitated.  This cost me last year with Yasiel Puig and it cost me this year with Jorge Soler and George Springer.  I waited, and I missed out.

Blech.  Hope you enjoyed the rant.