MLB's Updated Award Race Winners for 2015
The finish line is in sight for this Major League Baseball season.
With less than six weeks to play in the regular season, very little is decided when it comes to the playoff races, sans the Kansas City Royals and St. Louis Cardinals being locks to win their respective Central divisions. Everything else is still up for grabs.
That includes the award races, nearly all of which are still in the wind. That means these final weeks will decide most of the awards, but as of right now we at least know the front-runners and the players who will be chasing them down in the final weeks.
AL Most Valuable Player: Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels
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This race has gotten much, much closer since the All-Star break as Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson has put up incredible numbers, but Trout is still the man in front right now.
He leads Donaldson in Baseball-Reference WAR by a hair—Donaldson leads FanGraphs WAR by the same margin—as well as OPS+, OPS, wRC+, wOBA, isolated power and walk rate. He trails Donaldson by one home run.
Trout’s numbers have dropped dramatically in the second half. He's slashed .258/.364/.508 entering Tuesday with just seven of his 33 homers since the break. Meanwhile, Donaldson went into Tuesday with a .328/.420/.736 slash line, a 1.156 OPS and 13 of his 34 home runs in the same time frame.
Clearly he has closed the gap, but Trout still leads in most of the telling categories. And while Donaldson’s defense also rates higher, Trout, a center fielder, should get a bump for manning one of the premium defensive positions.
If these second-half trends continue over the next month, Donaldson will overtake Trout as the favorite. But if Trout rights himself within that time, he’ll wrap up his second consecutive AL MVP honor.
NL Most Valuable Player: Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals
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This could still turn into a race between Harper and Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, but that would require Harper going into a prolonged slump sometime soon. He’s avoided doing that over the first five months and is currently one of the hottest hitters in the league.
That pretty much closes the door on this thing, though Goldschmidt is still close enough that things could change. Realistically, though, they won’t.
Harper leads Goldschmidt in both WAR calculations as well as wRC+, walk rate, wOBA, isolated power, OPS+, home runs and the traditional slash line, as we can see on FanGraphs.
Harper has also not had a month this season in which his OPS has been lower than .914, which it was for August entering Tuesday.
AL Cy Young: Chris Sale, Chicago White Sox
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Of all the races, this one has a great shot at being the closest and most difficult to be decided. There are no fewer than five legitimate candidates, and picking which one you like the best comes down to what stats you admire most.
Sale is a strikeout machine this season, leading the league with 222, 12.16 per nine innings, a 6.73 strikeout-to-walk ratio and a 33.6 strikeout percentage. Because of those high K numbers, FanGraphs has him in the lead with a 5.6 WAR among pitchers. He also leads the league with a 2.37 FIP and 2.45 xFIP, numbers also helped greatly by his high strikeout rates.
Oakland’s Sonny Gray, Houston’s Dallas Keuchel, Tampa Bay’s Chris Archer, Toronto’s David Price and Cleveland’s Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco all have at least decent cases to be named this year’s AL Cy Young Award winner. If one of them goes on a great run between now and the end of the season, he could overtake Sale and all the others.
For now, though, Sale’s strikeouts are the difference.
NL Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers
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Remember when some people ridiculously believed something was actually wrong with Kershaw? Yeah, that was dumb.
Kershaw, who swept the MVP and Cy Young awards last season, leads the league with a 6.2 FanGraphs WAR, 177 innings pitched, 222 strikeouts, 11.29 strikeouts per nine innings, a 2.12 FIP and a 2.12 xFIP. His 2.29 ERA is second in the league behind teammate Zack Greinke, who also leads the league in ERA+ and Baseball-Reference WAR.
Greinke, Washington’s Max Scherzer, New York’s Jacob deGrom and Chicago’s Jake Arrieta all have a case to win the award, but Kershaw has put to bed the discussion that anyone else might be the game’s best starter. If he wins, it will be his fourth Cy Young Award in the last five years, and he should have won in 2012 when R.A. Dickey earned the sentimental vote to break up Kershaw’s string.
AL Rookie of the Year: Carlos Correa, Houston Astros
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Correa did not make his major league debut until June 8, but since then he has certainly been the best rookie in the league.
He is tied for the AL rookie lead with 15 home runs, and his 139 wRC+ is second-best among rookies, while his 2.8 FanGraphs WAR leads all of them. And playing a premium defensive position, he’s shown that he's possibly the most athletic shortstop in the majors, capable of dazzling with his highlight reel.
Correa was seen as a surprise No. 1 overall pick in the 2012 draft, but he’s lived up to the selection position by being among the best rookies in the game.
NL Rookie of the Year: Kris Bryant, Chicago Cubs
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About a month ago this had become more of a race, but Bryant has bounced back from a terrible July to separate himself from the rest of the league’s rookie field, one that includes St. Louis' Randal Grichuk, San Francisco's Matt Duffy, Pittsburgh's Jung Ho Kang and Los Angeles' Joc Pederson.
He went into Tuesday batting .338/.437/.676 with a 1.112 OPS and six home runs in August, with four of those home runs coming over his last seven games. He leads all the league’s rookies with a 4.7 FanGraphs WAR and is in the top three in home runs, walk rate, wOBA and wRC+. He is also an excellent baserunner and has played strong defense at third base.
Like Carlos Correa in the American League, Bryant is showing that all the hype surrounding him going into this season was worth it. He has lived up to it and is a major reason why the Cubs are looking like they will make the playoffs for the first time since 2008.
AL Manager of the Year: A.J. Hinch, Houston Astros
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The Astros were certainly a team on the rise, but given that they are in position to win the AL West and appear to be a legitimate World Series contender with a lineup that has an average age of 26 years old, Hinch should be the runaway winner.
Kansas City’s Ned Yost also has a good chance to win this thing since the Royals have the best record in the league, and Toronto’s John Gibbons could get himself some votes, particularly if the Blue Jays win the AL East. But the Astros have been one of this season’s biggest surprises, and that should be enough for Hinch to lock this up.
NL Manager of the Year: Joe Maddon, Chicago Cubs
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The Cubs are coming off a four-year stretch in which they lost a total of 377 games, an average of 94 losses a year. This year, however, they have a shot at winning 90 games and could be a dangerous matchup for anyone if they make the postseason.
Maddon was one of the team’s big offseason acquisitions, and while a manager’s influence on a team’s record might be minimal, he has already been worth the headlines.
AL Comeback Player of the Year: Jason Kipnis, Cleveland Indians
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Kipnis was one of the most disappointing players in the entire league last season, putting up a well-below-average 81 OPS+ and an ugly 83 wRC+. By way of FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference, he wasn’t even worth one win to the Indians, clocking a 0.7 WAR on both calculations.
This year he is one of the best all-around players in the sport.
His 4.9 FanGraphs WAR is sixth in the league, his 4.7 mark at Baseball-Reference puts him 10th, and he is in the league’s top 10 in batting average, wOBA and wRC+ while leading it in OBP. Considering where he was last year, this is a great rebound season.
NL Comeback Player of the Year: Carlos Gonzalez, Colorado Rockies
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The National League has its share of candidates for this award, including New York’s Matt Harvey and Cincinnati’s Joey Votto, despite the fact that Votto was quite productive last season when he was healthy.
But if we are basing this award on a player’s lack of production and lack of being able to stay on the field, Gonzalez is the clear winner. He was limited to 70 games in 2014 because of a cornucopia of injuries, and when he was on the field he was not very productive, posting an 89 OPS+ and negative WAR numbers at FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference.
This season has been different. He already has 30 home runs, one off Bryce Harper’s NL lead, and he was good for a 120 OPS+ and 118 wRC+ going into Tuesday. He is third in the league in isolated power, fifth in slugging, seventh in OPS and ninth in wOBA, FanGraphs shows.
Considering his health and production issues last season, that should be good enough for Gonzalez to be a lock for this award.
