Forecasting baseball’s award winners
Baseball’s regular season ends today — barring a playoff — so let’s look at the favorites to win awards after the postseason.
AL MVP: Mike Trout, Angels.
After two years of pundits gnashing their teeth in the battle between Trout and the Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera (no need to rehash all that WAR talk, right?), Trout should win this in a walk. He leads the league in runs (115), RBIs (111), total bases (338) and OPS+ (170). He’s also clubbed 36 homers.
Also considered: Jose Abreu, Victor Martinez, Alex Gordon
NL MVP: Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers.
This is a good conversation starter: Should a pitcher even be considered for MVP? One school of thought is that pitchers have their own award, while others say this award should go to the best player in the league. If you’re in the latter group, it’s hard to argue against Kershaw. No player has been as dominant or important to his team as Kershaw.
Also considered: Giancarlo Stanton, Andrew McCutcheon, Jonathan Lucroy
AL Cy Young: Corey Kluber, Indians.
ESPN noted that in the last 20 years, only four pitchers have finished with 18 wins, 260 strikeouts and an ERA below 2.50: Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson and Kluber. Opponents hit just .210 against Kluber in the second half of the season.
Also considered: Chris Sale, Felix Hernandez
NL Cy Young: Kershaw.
The numbers people look at first (21-3, 1.77 ERA, 239 strikeouts) speak for themselves. He’s also tossed six complete games and has a remarkable 0.857 WHIP. He did that despite making just one start in April because of an injury.
Also considered: Adam Wainwright, Johnny Cueto
AL Manager of Year: Buck Showalter, Orioles. Baltimore seemed to thrive on adversity. The Orioles lost stars Manny Machado and Matt Wieters during the season, then saw Chris Davis get a suspension. But the wins never stopped coming for Baltimore.
Also considered: Mike Scioscia, Lloyd McClendon
NL Manager of Year: Mike Redmond, Marlins
Also considered: No one expected Miami to finish higher than fourth in the NL East. While the division is awful outside of Washington, the Marlins will finish near .500 and could take second.
Also considered: Mike Matheny, Matt Williams
AL Rookie of Year: Jose Abreu, White Sox.
This likely will be unanimous. Abreu is no kid (he’s 27), but he has posted monster numbers: 35 doubles, 35 home runs, 105 RBIs and a league-best .574 slugging percentage.
Also considered: Matt Shoemaker, Yordano Ventura
NL Rookie of Year: Jacob deGrom, Mets.
It’s not a great class this year, but imagine where the Mets would be without deGrom, who was 9-6 with a 2.69 ERA.
Also considered: Billy Hamilton, Ender Inciarte
To reach Pete Grathoff, call 816-234-4330 or send email to pgrathoff@kcstar.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/pgrathoff
You need to know
▪ The Phillies are the first major-league team to have two players with 180 or more strikeouts in the same season; through Thursday, Ryan Howard had 188 whiffs, while teammate Marlon Byrd had 181.
▪ Elias noted that Detroit slugger Miguel Cabrera is hitting .396 this month.
▪ Cardinal manager Mike Matheny joined Hughie Jennings (1907-09), Ralph Houk (1961-63), Larry Dierker (1997-99) and Ron Gardenhire (2002-04) as the only big-league skippers to take teams to the postseason in each of their first three seasons at the helm.
▪ Bill Arnold of Beyond the Box Score says that since 2011, the Astros lead the majors with 414 losses, followed by the Twins with 382 and the Cubs with 376.
▪ Cubs rookie Javier Baez had nine homers and 90 strikeouts in his first 49 games. That means, over a full season he would have hit 29 homers and 297 strikeouts.
▪ The Nationals and Tigers are the only major-league clubs this year with four players with at least 80 RBIs each. The Royals have none.
This story was originally published September 27, 2014 at 7:30 PM with the headline "Forecasting baseball’s award winners."