Nationals Arm Race

Josh Hamilton hits another homer. Photo: www.graphicshunt.com

Nov, 2010 Update: actual award winners:

• AL MVP: Josh Hamilton
• AL Cy Young: Felix Hernandez
• AL Rookie: Neftali Feliz
  
• AL Mgr: Ron Gardenhire

• NL MVP: Joey Votto, named first on 31/32 ballots.
• NL Cy Young: Roy Halladay, unanimous.
• NL Rookie: Buster Posey, rather easily over Jayson Heyward
• NL Mgr: Bud Black

Candidates and Guesses on the award winners for the 4 major categories per league.  I originally wrote this towards the end of the season, and now am updating it based on how the season finished out.

AL MVP: Josh Hamilton (Cano 2nd unless voters get all NY-starry eyed).  Miguel Cabrera getting is putting up serious numbers but the all around play of Hamilton is hard to miss.

AL Cy Young: Felix Hernandez.  Back in late august I had CC Sabathia winning this, but Felix’s statistics pitching for such a poor team are overwhelming.  Mid summer, this was David Price‘s award to lose and, well, he’s lost it.  Cliff Lee was putting in a pretty strong summer as well but has really struggled since getting to Texas.  Guys like Clay Buchholz (who led the Majors in ERA for a bit) and Trevor Cahill looking so strong.  Lots of good starter performances in the AL this year.

AL Rookie: Neftali Felix, who has been lights out for the Rangers as their closer.  Guys like Austin Jackson and Brendan Boesch have tailed off.  Daniel Bard really isn’t in a position as a setup guy to be the impact player the others are.  Reaching the post season and putting up good numbers there didn’t hurt.

AL Mgr: I’m going with Minnesota’s Ron Gardenhire.  He coaxed 94 wins out of a team with a ho-hum pitching staff, a team that lost its closer in the pre-season and which didn’t have its leading slugger for the 2nd half of the season.  Ron Washington also gets some credit, having taken a team with very little payroll to the top of their division.  Its a bit less impressive though since the Rangers were already projecting to be a pretty good team.

NL MVP: Joey Votto.  Pujols may be an equal, but Votto will win the “hey lets give it to someone else” crowd.  I guess Adrian Gonzalez will come in a distant third.

NL Cy Young: Roy Halladay, who has been consistently and quietly awesome so far this year.  Again this was another’s to lose (Ubaldo Jimenez) and indeed he has lost it, performing so badly in the last month that I considering dropping him from my fantasy team.  Wainwright is up there for consideration as well.  Latos, Josh Johnson, and Hudson are also having great seasons.

NL Rookie: Buster Posey.  Yes he only came up in june, but to immediately slot in as the catcher, calling games for a rotation of elite starters AND being  your teams cleanup hitter is impressive.  That they made the playoffs and eventually won the World Series with Posey at the helm is even more impressive.  In August this award was absolutely going to Jayson Heyward, but he tailed off and wasn’t nearly as exciting towards the end of the season as in the beginning.  Jamie Garcia is in third place; it is hard to argue with a potential Cy Young candidate.   Mike Stanton, Gaby Sanchez and even Stephen Strasburg were up for consideration at various times.  Mike Leake‘s accomplishments are pretty noteworthy (not a day in the minors and making the MLB rotation on a playoff-bound team).  Just a great rookie class in the NL this year.

NL Manager: Bud Black, though some serious consideration goes to Dusty Baker for the job he’s done in Cincinnati.  But (in a similar story to Texas) to take a team nearly dead last in payroll to the top of a division with big time talent is tough.  Bobby Cox has also done a nice job turning around Atlanta.

Zack Greinke at photo day 2010. Photo by Harry How/Getty Images North America

I have kind of a love-hate relationship with Keith Law sometimes.  I think he’s a pretty darn good talent evaluator and there’s a reason he had a front office job (and now the scouting analysis job).  He even once responded to an article follow-up email I sent him where I thought he was bashing Bowden’s moves a bit to heavily (ironic in that i’m now clearly on the anti-Bowden track as he was all along).  However, I think he over-analyzes and is a bit TOO stat heavy sometimes, and I believe he over-values certain players.

In yesterday’s chat on ESPN (insider only, apologies), there were a few Washington related questions.  Here was one that I couldn’t quite believe though:

Joseph (Sacramento, CA) asks, “J.Zimmermann, Espinosa, Burgess, Detwiler for Greinke? Does this work for both sides?”

Klaw answer: “It certainly works for Washington.”

Jordan Zimmermann, Espinosa, Burgess and Detwiler for Greinke straight up.  I say, no way.  I have to disagree with Law here.

That’s trading your current #2 pitcher, your anticipated starting 2nd baseman, your best OF prospect not named Bryce Harper, and a prospect lefty starting pitcher/former 1st round draft choice (who may not have great MLB stats but is a lefty who throws mid 90s) for a potential #1 starter.  I say Potential because, if you look at Greinke’s career numbers they’re not exactly overwhelming.  Yes he had a phenomenal 2009.  What happened in 2010?  Era+ of 100 means he was MLB average.  The years before he was a good but not overpowering starter on a bad team (putting up ERA+ figures of 126 and 124; good but not great).   There’s no promise of Greinke returning to that form (though the move to the NL will certainly help).  Is he a Ron Guidry or Rick Sutcliffe pitcher (guys who had one fabulous year and then came back down to earth)?

I think I’d be interested in Greinke (who wouldn’t?) but at a lesser price.  I’d trade Zimmermann and Espinosa for him.  Justification; Zimmermann is indeed a #2 starter quality guy but would be expendable with Greinke in the fold.  Espinosa shows great promise and I like him, but we also have a couple of high-profile 2nd basemen prospects in the minors that would feature soon (Lombardozzi or Kobernus).  Perhaps I’m as guilty as Law in overvaluing our own prospects, but to me Greinke isn’t good enough to merit the trade.  If it was a better “Ace,” someone with a repeated track record of success (Felix Hernandez, Lincecum, Halladay), the haul would be easily worth it.

But for Greinke, all 4 of those guys is too much.