2014
Season Awards
Well
the season is over and the World Series between the Cardinals and Red Sox
begins today. This is an exciting
time of year in the baseball world and personally I’ve enjoyed the playoffs a
lot. But that’s not what I’m going
to talk about today, it’s that time of the year to look at the end of the
season awards and my picks for MVP Cy Young and the rest.
American League
MVP- Miguel Cabrera- This is a
harder choice than you may expect depending on what stats you look at. His slash line is the best in baseball
and his ability with the bat is starting to become legendary. With that said his defense is bad just
plain bad, he’s not the worst but he is pretty bad. This is why his WAR or Wins Above Replacement is only 7.2,
when I say 7.2 realize that this is an amazing WAR, which puts him 4th
overall in WAR for the American League.
Trout, Donaldson and Cano are the only guys above him and of those
players only Trout in my mind would challenge Cabrera. In the end the question is simply “who
was the most important to his team?”
Angels didn’t make the playoffs and the Tigers did Cabrera was a massive
part of that.
Cy Young-Max Scherzer- Wins mean
nothing to me, nothing at all. A
pitcher with a lot of wins tells me nothing of his skills and how his season
was. I say this because I didn’t
choose Scherzer because of an impressive 21 win season I choose him for an
amazing K/9 (10.88) and K/BB (4.29) that really stand out. Scherzer was able to keep the BB’s down
this year which is been his problem since he as a rookie. He was also able to limit the hits that
teams had on him holding opponents to a BAA of .198, very impressive. There are things to me that throw up a
red flare that his isn’t going to happen (to this extent) next year but for now
it looks like Max just turned the corner on his career.
Rookie of the Year-Wil Myers- The
AL didn’t really have that many strong Rookies this year but Wil Myers is
defiantly the cream of the crop, ending the season with a slash line of
.293/.354/.478 is not just impressive for a rookie but a major leaguer in
general. He’s still got a lot of
weak areas to iron out but he’s shown the skill to do it.
National League
MVP- Andrew McCutchen- This was a
tough call between Paul Goldschmidt but much like with Cabrera the final thing
I judge on is the fact that the Pirates got to the playoffs. Not to say McCutchen didn’t have a
great season, he ranked 2nd overall in WAR only to Carlos Gomez and
that’s mostly due to Gomez’s defense.
An impressive BB/9 and a good K/9 makes him a great player and will be
for a few more years.
Cy Young- Clayton Kershaw- ya this
isn’t a surprise. Best pitcher in
the NL and easily one of the best, if not THE best pitcher, in the game
today. I’m not sure what I can add
to say how good this guy is. An
amazing K/9 and the ability to not give up BB make him solid and easily the
best pitcher in the NL.
Rookie of the Year- Jose Fernandez-
This is one of the best surprises of the year and to me had a better much
stronger season then Puig. If you
want to see more about him you can read my scouting report on him here. http://calltothepen05.blogspot.com/2013/09/scouting-report-jose-fernandez.html
Biggest Surprise- Pittsburg
Pirates- I was very skeptical of this team from the beginning since they have
shown the talent to do what they did this year for 3 years now. But till this year they always fell
apart just before the playoffs and fell apart after the All Star break. This year they survived on solid
pitching and amazing relief pitching lead by Jason Grilli and Mark
Melancon. We can only hope that
his team can keep this up and be a team to watch for years to come.
Biggest Disappointment- Washington
Nationals and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim- These teams come in a tie for most
disappointing mostly for the same reason but got there differently. The Nationals actually started to make
a comeback at the end of the season but just fell short of the playoffs. The team actually could make a run next
year and I still put them up there next year. As for the Angels, I just expected so much more. I expected them to be at least
competitive with the other teams but they only showed it once in a while. This is still a team that has promise
and as long as they have Trout and Pujols playing well they can still be a
great team. They need hitting help
though, Pujol’s and Hamilton’s production is going down and they need to find
help that is cheap. They also need
to find pitching help, both bullpen and rotation are weak.
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