Fancy Store-Bought Dirt

Baseball Individual Awards

I think I pay less attention to this kind of hardware than other fans do, because I don't have very much vested in who ought to win, nor do I completely understand the mechinations by which particular players actually do win (whether they ought to have or not). That said, this year's individual trophy races are meta-interesting in that they're so uninspiring (to steal a point from Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus).

NL MVP: Albert Pujols is close to nailing this down. If the Cubs hadn't gone in the tank this could have been Derrek Lee's. I'm ambivalent about the extent to which Lee would need to outperform Pujols to "deserve" the award. For the moment Lee's having a slightly better year but not enough for anyone to regret the near-inevitability of Pujols taking it.

NL Cy Young: Should be Roger Clemens but could easily be Chris Carpenter through a combination of voters overvaluing wins and voters inappropriately punishing Clemens for being a jerk.

NL Rookie: Jeff Francoeur is almost a mortal lock, and probably deserves it. Although being called up only mid-season would in theory hurt him, there's no serious competition: A freak venison injury and an undeserved benching have derailed both Clint Barmes and Ryan Church. That leaves Zach Duke, who not only came up mid-season himself but also is a pitcher.

AL MVP: At this point it probably should be A-Rod, though I'm not at all enthusiastic about this. There's a nontrivial chance Scott Podsednik would win this, becoming one of the least deserving MVP candidates ever. Still plenty of time for David Ortiz or Vlad Guerrero to step up. I'll predict a torrid six weeks from Vlad to decide it.

AL Cy Young: By my count there are nine NL pitchers more deserving of a mythical league-independent Cy Young than the most deserving AL pitcher, whoever he may be. (Clemens, Carpenter, Pedro, Dontrelle Willis, Roy Oswalt, Andy Pettitte, Jake Peavy, John Smoltz, Carlos Zambrano).

Despite the latest scuttlebutt, AL Cy Young winner won't be Mariano Rivera, even though nobody's obviously better than him at the moment. Rather, at least one of {Johan Santana, Rich Harden, Mark Buehrle} will do well enough over the next six weeks to stake a claim.

AL Rookie: Given that he's a pitcher who didn't debut until August, how well would Felix Hernandez have to do theoretically to win this? The scary thing is he just might. If King Felix stumbles then Nick Swisher is the best of a bad lot. (Jhonny Peralta isn't eligible, having played a lot in 2003. Look up Peralta: You'll be shocked at how good a year he's having, at least I was.)

Posted by Matt Bruce at August 22, 2005 05:11 PM