2024 Awards

It's probably just about almost time to start this thread.

Judge/Ohtani/Skubal/Sale/??/??/??/??

100% on those four. (I'm wondering if the AL MVP will have the highest percentage of the same 1-2-3 ballots--Judge/Witt/Soto--ever.) Skenes should be a lock, although I know there are a few guys who would normally win ROY in the NL. AL ROY, I don't know; I don't see an obvious winner there, or a really great rookie season.

Oh--Chris Sale just might win NL Comeback Player of the Year. (A.J. Hinch for AL Manager; NL, don't know.)

Skenes should be a lock

As of today, Skenes (4.2) trails Jackson Merrill (5.1) in fWAR by almost a full fWinshare. But bRef is far kinder to Skenes, shows him at 6.0 vs Merrill's 4.3

Didn't check--good point. I think Skenes does better with bWAR. Maybe it'll be much closer than I thought...but I still think he'll win.

Which you point out...Skenes has the combined lead, so I think that'll be more than enough.

i would give the edge to Skenes tbh. it's way rarer to see a starter come up and dominate. for whatever reason there just seems to be a tougher learning curve for pitchers than hitters imho

bWAR has Merrill at 4.2, Skenes at 6.0.

Something I just noticed. We always say the 3 Cys or 3 MVPs makes you a (non-PED) HOF lock; that's true. If you look at Award Shares on Baseball Reference, 3.00 is also the dividing line for the Cy Young:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/mvp_cya.shtml

The 13 pitchers above 3.00 are all in the Hall. Below 3.00, you've got:

14. Gerrit Cole - 2.90
15. Johan Santana - 2.72
16. Corey Kluber - 2.60
17. Felix Hernandez - 2.46
18. Jacob deGrom - 2.44
19. Bret Saberhagen - 2.20
20. David Price - 2.11

Cole will likely make the HOF, and will also likely end up over 3.00. deGrom likely would too if won another one; if not, no. Felix goes on the ballot this year--we'll see.

(The threshhold for MVP shares is lower; non-HOF players start to show up more frequently somewhere in the mid-low 2.00s.)

I'm one of those weirdoes who thinks Johan Santana should in fact be a HOFer, he's certainly more worthy than a lot of guys who stuck around longer and were able to accrue more impressive career stats. Kluber and Saberhagen and deGrom and Felix are like that too, but their careers were (or are) a bit sloppier.

I think Posnanski has really advocated for Santana, whose prime years aren't out of line with Koufax's after adjustments.

The case for Felix (or against I guess) is sort of a bummer. Dude just hit a wall at like 30. he never had the peak of a degrom or Koufax, but also didn’t have those injuries. Dude was a workhorse that just lost it when he hit his 30s. If he had just two more years tacked into the end of his 20s, he’d be a shoe in for the hall

I kinda think the Hall of Fame should lower the bar a bit to allow a few more pitchers from the last 40 years in there. And actually, I don’t think they’d be lowering the bar, as much as taking a closer look to reassess. Stieb, Brown, Santana, Hershiser, Cone…these guys were representative of the era in terms of the most dominant pitchers. They really have to consider including those peak level guys, even if their careers were not long enough to build up those massive counting stats. They’ve got to do it like the NBA. There’s room there for both Tracy McGrady, and Wilt Chamberlain.

I wonder how high Tarik Skubal will finish in MVP voting? I know nobody cares about wins, but the second most on the Tigers is 7 to his 18. He leads the team in bWAR at 6.3; Riley Greene is 5.5, then it drops to Tyler Holton at 3.0. It's kind of a rag-tag team after him. I'm going to say 5th: Judge, Witt, Soto, Ramirez, Skubal.

Just saw this pointed out:

Skubal: 18-4, 2.39 ERA, 228 strikeouts
Sale: 18-3, 2.38 ERA, 225 strikeouts

Pretty amazing--certainly the closest ever for two Cy Young winners.

I know this doesn't matter but:

Skubal will continue to be a champion throughout the postseason
Sale... might be available in Spring Training?

Gold Gloves: https://www.mlb.com/news/2024-gold-glove-award-winners

Many guys there I just don't know.

I’m familiar with most of them, but not enough to know if the majority of them deserve the GG

"Many" was too strong--three or four I don't know. Nice to see Varsho win.

Wilyer led in all RF metrics for both leagues I think? Absolute stud in a huge RF. Learned that in Spanish they call outfielders “jardineros”, which was cool.

Cue the ✨Gold Glove✨ highlights. pic.twitter.com/RdwSCb9Mv1

— Red Sox (@RedSox) November 4, 2024

Henceforth known as the Golden Dumper

lmao? https://t.co/h4j8I5UTZH pic.twitter.com/Ank9aA80QX

— jack (@Jolly_Olive) November 4, 2024