Bleacher Report's 2014 League Division Series Awards
Officially, Major League Baseball doesn't hand out awards for the division series round. No player awards. No manager awards. No nothing.
But that's OK. It leaves the door open for us to have some fun with the idea.
With the first round of the postseason in the books after the Baltimore Orioles, Kansas City Royals, St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants won their respective division series, we're here to make up 10 awards and dish them out to deserving parties—all in the interests of what-the-heckery and good fun.
If you're on board with the idea, you may read on whenever you're ready.
Top Breakout Star: Anthony Rendon, Washington Nationals
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Fun fact: Fellow B/R MLB Lead Writer Jason Catania is actually a soothsayer. Just as he predicted, Anthony Rendon did indeed have a coming-out party in his first postseason.
Rendon was part of a losing effort against the San Francisco Giants, but he was a rare Washington Nationals hitter who actually pulled his weight with a .368 average in the series.
“Does it look like it?” Rendon responded to Adam Kilgore of The Washington Post when asked if he was feeling any pressure. “It’s still a game.”
Spoken like a true prodigy, and far too few seemed to notice that Rendon played like one all season too.
The 24-year-old hit .287 with an .825 OPS, collecting 21 home runs and 17 stolen bases while playing good defense at both third and second base. By FanGraphs WAR, only two position players had more productive seasons: Mike Trout and Andrew McCutchen.
And yet Rendon couldn't even make the All-Star team. It's also a good bet that he won't get as many MVP votes as he deserves. That's his punishment for being surrounded by so much star power in D.C.
After loudly introducing himself to a national audience in the National League Division Series, though, here's guessing more people will be paying attention to him in 2015.
Top Pleasant Surprise: Eric Hosmer, Kansas City Royals
2 of 10Heading into the postseason, the Royals' biggest weakness on paper was their almost total lack of power. They did, after all, finish dead last in MLB in home runs.
Eric Hosmer sure didn't help. Though a hand injury landed him on the disabled list for several weeks, it's still shocking to see a first baseman hit only nine home runs in as many as 131 games—especially one who looked like a future 30-homer guy once upon a time.
But wouldn't you know it, there was Hosmer clobbering the ball in the American League Division Series.
Of the four hits Hosmer picked up against the Los Angeles Angels, three were extra-base hits. Two of those were dingers—a go-ahead homer in Game 2 and a two-run shot in Game 3—that were utterly destroyed.
Granted, third baseman and fellow former top prospect Mike Moustakas also broke out his power in the ALDS. But with power being the one thing he actually handled reasonably well in the regular season, it was far more surprising to see Hosmer hitting ropes.
Cue all of Kansas City going, "So...any way you can keep it going for at least eight more games?"
Top Defensive Play: Hunter Pence, San Francisco Giants
3 of 10We saw some terrific defense in the division series. J.P. Howell's between-the-legs double play. Norichika Aoki's wall-hugging catch. The Orioles' awesome around-the-horn double play. You name it.
But as you've probably figured out by now, it's Hunter Pence's catch against the right field wall at AT&T Park in Game 4 of the NLDS that's getting the prize for the best of the bunch.
It happened in the sixth inning, with the Giants holding a 2-1 lead. Had Pence misplayed Jayson Werth's deep line drive, it likely would have been a triple that put the tying run 90 feet away with only one out.
Instead, Pence made a perfectly timed leap and somehow managed to keep the ball in his glove even as he smacked into the wall.
It was the kind of catch that not only makes a stadium explode, but that makes Twitter go wild. Among the reactions was this one from BusinessInsider.com's Cork Gaines: "Jumpman 2: Air Pence pic.twitter.com/6wRqS6cDZw."
Nailed it.
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Top Home Run: Matt Adams, St. Louis Cardinals
4 of 10Great defensive plays are one thing, but there's nothing like a great dinger. Great dingers are, well, great.
And with respect to Bryce Harper's booming moonshot and Brandon Belt's 18th-inning game-winner, no dinger we saw in the division series can match the one Matt Adams hit in Game 4 of the NLDS.
The St. Louis first baseman was matched up against Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw with two men on and nobody out in the seventh inning with the Cardinals down 2-0. He unloaded a three-run bomb that gave the Cardinals the lead and, eventually, the series.
That Adams homer was so clutch—FanGraphs says it boosted St. Louis' win expectancy from 36.6 to 80.3—is only half the story. The other half is how absurdly improbable it was.
Both Adams and Kershaw's lefty vs. lefty splits said the matchup was skewed ridiculously in Kershaw's favor. And when Kershaw went to his curveball, he was going to a pitch that no left-handed batter had ever taken deep before. The odds of it being hit a long way were incredibly slim.
If there's one thing Adams has in common with Han Solo, it's apparently this: Never tell him the odds.
Top Single-Game Performance: Yusmeiro Petit, San Francisco Giants
5 of 10If you want the top hitting performance of the division series round, it's hard to top Matt Carpenter's four-RBI day in Game 1 of the NLDS. If you want the top starting pitching performance, Game Score says it was turned in by Jordan Zimmermann in Game 2 of the NLDS.
It's a performance that happened much later in that game, however, that takes the cake.
Starting in the 12th inning and ending in the 17th inning, Giants right-hander Yusmeiro Petit allowed only one hit in six shutout innings of relief. He struck out seven along the way, and Belt's homer in the 18th netted Petit the win.
And he really did earn that win. Per Baseball-Reference.com, Petit's performance generated more win probability added than any other performance by either a hitter or a pitcher in the division series round.
Or, in plain English: Petit's six innings of one-hit ball increased his team's chances of winning more so than any other individual performance in any other game.
Between that and setting the record for consecutive batters retired, Petit's had himself a darn good year.
Top Game: Giants vs. Nationals, NLDS Game 2
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That none of the four division series went to a fifth game is misleading. None went the distance, but there was drama aplenty and excellent games all around.
Out of all of them, it's hard to top the 18-inning marathon the Giants and Nationals played in Game 2 of the NLDS.
For a while there, it looked like the story was going to be Jordan Zimmermann winning a world-class pitching duel against Tim Hudson. While he pitched brilliantly for 7.1 innings, Zimmermann pitched more brilliantly into the ninth inning.
Right up until he walked Joe Panik with two outs, anyway. Matt Williams brought in Drew Storen to get the last out, and he instead allowed a single to Buster Posey and a game-tying double to Pablo Sandoval. The only reason it wasn't a go-ahead double, of course, was because replay confirmed that a relay had just beaten Posey at the plate.
After that came a whole new game. Literally. And after Petit and Belt had each provided their heroics, the game had lasted a postseason-record six hours and 23 minutes.
And you know what? Re-watching all 383 minutes of it doesn't sound like such a bad idea.
Most Valuable Manager: Buck Showalter, Baltimore Orioles
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While seemingly every other manager in the division series round could do no right, Orioles skipper Buck Showalter could do no wrong.
Don't remember what he did? That's OK. We can recap.
Before an eight-run eighth propelled the Orioles to a 12-3 win in Game 1 of the ALDS, the Orioles and Detroit Tigers were playing a close, hard-fought game. In expertly weaving in Andrew Miller, Darren O'Day and Zach Britton between the sixth and eighth innings, Showalter made sure it stayed that way.
In Baltimore's 7-6 win in Game 2, Showalter let a struggling Wei-Yin Chen go only 3.2 innings before calling on Kevin Gausman for 3.2 one-run innings. Then he got two key outs from Brad Brach before inserting Delmon Young as a pinch hitter in the eighth inning and getting a game-winning three-run double.
In the ninth inning of Baltimore's series-clinching 2-1 win in Game 3, Britton was in a spot of bother with only one out and the tying run on second. That's when Showalter came to the mound.
“We’re going to walk this guy,” he said, via Dave Sheinin of The Washington Post. “The next guy’s going to hit into a double play, and we’re gonna go home.”
Naturally, that's exactly what happened.
The Tigers were not beaten by the Orioles. They were beaten by Buck Showalter.
Most Valuable Pitcher: Greg Holland, Kansas City Royals
8 of 10There's no obvious answer here. Jordan Zimmermann and Yusmeiro Petit authored the best individual pitching performances of the division series, but those were their only performances. Only Clayton Kershaw started twice, and that didn't go so well.
So we'll go with a guy who made multiple appearances and was untouchable in each of them: Royals closer Greg Holland.
Though he really should have been inserted earlier in both games, Holland came on in the 11th inning of Games 1 and 2 of the ALDS in Anaheim and saved both of them. Albeit in a non-save situation in Game 3, Holland once again closed out a win.
In finishing those three games, there was hardly any drama while Holland was on the mound. He struck out six of the 10 batters he faced, and the only baserunner he allowed reached via an error.
Note to the Orioles: Get a lead before Holland enters the game. Or else.
Most Valuable Player: Matt Carpenter, St. Louis Cardinals
9 of 10Presumably, the Dodgers planned on encountering all sorts of things in the NLDS against the Cardinals. One thing they might not have planned on, though, was Matt Carpenter turning into Barry Bonds.
After hitting only 11 home runs in 2013, Carpenter hit just eight home runs and saw his slugging percentage drop from .481 to .375 in 2014. Power wasn't really his thing.
Until suddenly it was. Carpenter doubled and homered in each of the first three games of the series, earning him the following distinction (via MLBStatoftheDay):
"With an HR and double in each of the 1st 3 games of the series, @MattCarp13 is 1st player to have 3 such games in any #postseason series."
What's more, we're talking about some pretty big hits. Carpenter's three-run double in Game 1 capped an impressive seventh-inning rally against Clayton Kershaw. His two-run homer in Game 2 was a game-tying shot. His solo homer in Game 3 was a go-ahead shot.
An 0-fer in Game 4 finally cooled Carpenter's hot bat, but he still hit .375 with a 1.537 OPS and seven RBI in the series. Out of all the players who came through in the division series, nobody caused as much damage as he did.
Top Team: Kansas City Royals
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There's obviously a strong case to be made for any of the four teams that advanced to the League Championship Series round, but we'll get right to the point: The Royals were simply the most dominant of the bunch.
Sure, Games 1 and 2 of their series against the Angels were tight affairs. But the Royals never trailed in either of them. It wasn't until Mike Trout's solo homer in the first inning of Game 3 that the Royals finally played from behind, and they grabbed a lead within minutes. Once they did, that was pretty much that.
Shutting down the Angels' high-powered offense was the key part of the effort. After leading the league in runs in the regular season, the Angels scored only six and managed a .559 OPS in the ALDS.
While the Royals' pitching played the main role there, don't forget the great defense the team played. It was this combination of pitching and defense that set up Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer for their heroics in Games 1 and 2, and then the bats had their big day with nine hits and eight runs in Game 3.
The Royals were probably the weakest team on paper coming into the division series, and yet they dispatched baseball's winningest team like it was nothing. Go figure.
Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and MLB.com unless otherwise noted/linked.
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