2014 BBWAA award nominee predictions/discussions/arguments thread

finalists announcement for all awards and gold glove winners drop tomorrow (nov. 4), silver slugger on nov. 6, ROTY on nov. 10 and the next three days after that are MOTY, cy youngs and MVPs, respectively.

HAVE AT IT FOLKS

AL MVP: Cabrera (kidding...the other guy)
AL Cy: Felix
NL MVP/Cy: "Six-Inning" Clayton

i'd like to put in a total homer bullshit wish for jackie bradley jr. for a GG at center field. tbh i think that's the only possible red sox winner of any award, and juan lagares could prob beat him. (thank god trout and cain played multiple OF positions and are thus ineligible here or they'd be obvious faves)

AL ROTY: abreu is practically a shoo-in, w/ ventura as a dark horse
NL ROTY: jacob deGrom

MOTY: shrug. i have no takes here - ned yost? #jokes

AL cy young: chris sale or king felix
NL cy young: clayton. fucking. kershaw. (i will hear not a peep of anyone's "but madbum tho" but will entertain the possibility of johnny cueto)

AL MVP: THE PRIDE OF VINELAND NJ HIMSELF
NL MVP: kershaw with a cloudy chance of giancarlo stanton

so mo one wants to use an actual name to describe the AL MVP?!

kershaw for nl cy and mvp
idk i think kluber might take al cy
trout for al mvp
abreu for al ROY
degrom for nl ROY

xp if you say his name too many times he'll come up behind you & try to sell you a subway sandwich

ALMPV – Trout Trout Trout!
ALCY – Felix
ALROY – Abreu

NLMVP – Kershaw (tho i kinda want to say McCluchen because the Pirates would not have made the playoffs without him, whereas the Dodgers probably would have without Kershaw)
NLCY – Kershaw (duh)
NLROY – deGrom

I voted in the Internet Baseball Awards and i believe this links to my ballot(s)

http://bbp.cx/iba/c5f5

I've stopped voting for managers, cuz we can only judge by the stuff we can see, and they all seem to suck in that regard.

BBWAA finalists about what you'd expect, aside from (maybe) madbum not making the cut for NL cy young and miggy not finding his way into the AL MVP race

I'd probably list Cano ahead of Brantley. They're close, and Brantley has a slight WAR edge, but I think Cano had the additional pressure of the huge contract; he was expected to lead a 71-win team into the playoffs, and he almost did. (The two are mirror images in that both may have been less valuable than the Cy-competing pitchers on their respective teams.)

pleasantly surprised about brantley

anyway

AL left fielder: Royals' Alex Gordon
AL shortstop: Orioles' J.J. Hardy
AL first baseman: Royals' Eric Hosmer
AL catcher: Royals' Salvador Perez
AL second baseman: Red Sox's Dustin Pedroia
AL third baseman: Mariners' Kyle Seager
AL pitcher: Astros' Dallas Keuchel
AL center fielder: Orioles' Adam Jones
AL right fielder: Orioles' Nick Markakis

NL first baseman: Dodgers' Adrian Gonzalez
NL second baseman: Rockies' DJ LeMahieu
NL shortstop: Braves' Andrelton Simmons
NL third baseman: Rockies' Nolan Arenado
NL left fielder: Marlins' Christian Yelich
NL center fielder: Mets' Juan Lagares
NL right fielder: Braves' Jason Heyward
NL pitcher: Dodgers' Zack Greinke
NL catcher: Cardinals' Yadier Molina

^not a BBWAA award, right?

the "finalist" stuff is such horseshit

are we really gonna have a separate GG thread

no, bcz we all know they are inferior to the Fielding Bible.

i have a serious problem with adam jones getting the center fielder GG award when he had 2 defensive runs saved this year and jackie bradley jr. had 14. 14!!!!!! fuck's sake!

glad for lagares, pedey and the royals/dodgers guys tho

http://m.mlb.com/bos/video/topic/51231442/v34439983/?query=jackie%2Bbradley

http://m.mlb.com/bos/video/topic/51231442/v33665447/clebos-bradley-makes-great-grab-doubles-off-aviles/?query=jackie%2Bbradley

I'M JUST SAYIN.

yadi getting the gold glove this year was kind of a joke.

Keith Law had an observation a couple weeks ago about how to win a Gold Glove: "Learn to hit well."

Seager over Donaldson is the most ridiculous by defensive metrics.

law's observation generally applies, but in the case of NL catchers it's even weirder because Lucroy was not only better defensively than Yadi, but waaaay better offensively as well. and played the whole season.

Sounds like he's the Mariska Hartigay of NL catchers?

yadi's just one of those guys who'll get it every year he plays more than 10 games. apparently jones has entered that club. at least he actually had a positive UZR this year.

man, if cain and dyson didn't split their time all over the place this yr...

(they would've gotten gold gloves)

Cain got the Fielding Bible multiposition award, another point in favor of ignoring the GGs.

dyson should've played every day over aoki just for defense alone. worth 3 WAR in less than half a season!

your Comeback Players

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/11/7/7174687/casey-mcgehee-chris-young-comeback-player-of-the-year

Matt Shoemaker getting the nomination nod over Yordano Ventura is BS.

^^^agreed

Congrats deGrom and Abreu.

Matt Williams for NL manager of the year, buck showalter (barf) for AL

I mean at least the NL made it interesting by not picking bochy, BS was a foregone conclusion but totes should've been scoscia IMO

klubes

called it http://i717.photobucket.com/albums/ww173/prestonjjrtr/Smileys%20Holidays/Halloween/CrystalBallFortuneTellerSmileyHand.gif

the was a pretty close vote!

glad the voters got

klubed in

This will be the first time since Ryan Howard's partial rookie season that Chase Utley finishes ahead of him in MVP voting

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=25044

(the piece explains why that (midsummer) tweet is probably not true)

that is a literal tragedy

Unanimous for Trout; let the healing begin.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15E2oV6L8FvKiCRA20LQYpix43u1bEt_goD2gmfRiiQ0/pubhtml

holliday got s 5th place vote, huh

lucroy! didn't expect that

dave cameron is the low cutch vote

holliday got s 5th place vote, huh

denard span's 4th place vote is also weird

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/explaining-my-national-league-mvp-ballot/

i guess the next big thing is sequencing? and putting stock in rendon's 70 high leverage PAs? suddenly giving a shit about clutch stats?

zachylon, you scared me with that Lucroy post bcz I thought you meant he WON. He was discussed as a prime candidate all summer, albeit not a winner past mid-August.

The top 6 in the NL were exactly how I voted in the IBA

http://bbp.cx/iba/c5f5

except for flopping Stanton and McCutchen. Good job, writers!

the howard-utley saga continues . . .

I knew that deGrom was from Stetson U, but not Kluber.

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/degrom-kluber-stetson-products-nl-rookie-of-the-year-al-cy-young-winner-111214

There's an amusing punchline buried in here: Trout's MVP was probably helped disproportionately by his RBI title.

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/the-rbi-obsession-is-still-tainting-the-mvp-voting-111414

(Don't misinterpret what I'm saying, which is not that it was a big factor--there were a million reasons to vote for Trout. But, following Neyer's argument, there were probably a few old-school voters who viewed his RBI title as an important reason to vote for him.)

well, of course. Not to mention V Martinez as the undeserved Cabrera-in-waiting. This was Trout's worst year, and best year in Dinosaur Stats.

while it's true that in the most literalist sense trout is "declining," as the stats show and Ben Lindbergh wrote v eloquently about, "trout's worst year" is kinda like saying "lebron's worst year"

that said, I may be loony but in some ways I think Stanton is better & I'd prefer to have him if I were a GM/manager

realizing tho that saying "in the literalist sense" as a qualifier in the saber-age is tantamount to heresy

I'm curious to see how both of those guys age skills-wise. Trout looks like the thing from fantastic four now but I wonder if he's gonna get more kruk-like over time. stanton seems like he might age better? But he also seems to be a bit more injury prone. This last one not his fault obv but still...

My first reaction is Trout easily, but a day or two ago someone posted a list of the top right-handed OPS+ through first three seasons (or something close to that, anyway), and Stanton wasn't too far behind Trout on the list. I'm blanking out on where I saw it...I'll put a link up, if I remember.

tbh barring conigliaro-like injury or PED scandal i'm more confident in stanton ending up in the HOF than trout, if only because he'd be a virtual lock for 500 hr

^^^agreed

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/jerry-green/2014/11/15/green-sabremetrics-leave-winning-factor/19108029/

MVP race related. hey think you've read the worst sports article ever? you haven't. until now. I swear this is even worse than that fucking rick reilly piece directed at jetes's unborn scion

was surprised to learn/realize giancarlo only has 2 years on his contract. he's still so young it's just bizarre imagining him a free agent in a couple years

but when i was looking at cot's i was reminded of that 2006 season where the marlins spent less than $15 million

3 hitters making the league minimum combined for 15 WAR

almost a third of the salary tied up in dontrelle willis

only other player making 7 figures was "brian" "moehler"

what a time to be alive

you guys don't deserve Trout, Trout is the best, Trout will be the best, Stanton will be great obviously, but Trout is Trout. TROUT.

Wouldn't take this seriously--the unfairness is obvious--but it's interesting. (John Dewan, not James.)

http://www.billjamesonline.com/is_madison_bumgarner_the_worlds_1_starting_pitcher_/

BEEOK THIS IS YOUR MOMENT

IIRC Bum is the world's #2 after Clayton Keyshawn.

and rightfully so because kershaw is stone cold perfection

A friend attended the BBWAA dinner Saturday night; Koufax spoke after being honored for the 50th anniv of his perfect game. Mike Trout was absent w/ stomach flu.

Bud and Sandy on the dais

http://m.mlb.com/video/v37173891/jacob-degrom-accepts-nl-rookie-of-the-year-award