Bleacher Report's Year-End 2014 MLB Awards Presentation

Forget Most Valuable Player, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year. Those are the actual awards that will be handed out soon after the completion of the 2014 Major League Baseball regular season.

Bleacher Report's Year-End 2014 MLB Awards? These honors are a fresher, alternative and—dare we say—more fun take on the happenings from this year now that the end is so very near.

Best Catch

While Los Angeles Dodgers lightning rod Yasiel Puig has about as strong of a case for this unbelievable how'd-he-not-break-his-wrist diving catch, the winner is Mike Trout for the Los Angeles Angels stud's even more ridiculous no-look, over-the-shoulder snag (highlighted above) of a Kendrys Morales liner that had all kinds of funky tailing action on it. Sick.

Best Decision

Speaking of catches...

Expanded instant replay in 2014 proved to be a big success—for the most part. Problems arose early in the season, however, when umpires started enforcing the catch-and-transfer rule differently than they had at any other point in baseball's history, all because of how frame-by-frame reviews suddenly turned a catch into a non-catch by the letter of the law.

There were several instances that altered outcomes of games and made the sport look silly, like the one involving Elliot Johnson up top.

"They [the league] made it clear to us in spring training that's the way it would be," Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter said, via Bob Nightengale of USA Today. "We told them it would be a problem, but they said this was the way it was going to be."

Fortunately, MLB fixed the problem by late April. A catch was once again a catch, and sanity was restored.

Best New Baseball Jargon

"Pipe shot"

Definition: A pitch deliberately thrown over the plate for the batter to hit.

Derivation: The 2014 All-Star Game, when St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Adam Wainwright, starting for the National League side, apparently admitted (before backtracking later upon hearing about the immediate overreaction) to giving retiring New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter "a couple pipe shots" in his first at-bat of his final Midsummer Classic.

Best Fan

This one is a gimme. Without SunWoo Lee, the longtime Kansas City Royals superfan from South Korea who visited America and K.C. for the first time in August, who knows if the Royals would have made the playoffs for the first time in 29 years, let alone be preparing to play in the World Series?

After all, Lee's 10-day trip to see his beloved team and meet many of the current and former players he's rooted for since the mid-1990s just so happened to coincide with the Royals winning 11 of 12 games to overtake the Detroit Tigers for first place in the AL Central.

"From the first day in Kansas City," Lee said, via Jackson Alexander of MLB.com, "all the attention from media and all the people welcoming and greeting me in Kansas City, it's way over my expectations."

And the best part about his journey? "That's an easy question: The Royals keep winning."

Indeed.

Best No-Hitter

There were five no-hitters in 2014, all in the NL, but none was better than Clayton Kershaw's June 18 gem in which the Los Angeles Dodgers lefty was merely a seventh-inning Hanley Ramirez error away from a perfect game with 15 strikeouts. Still, Kershaw's masterpiece—done against the Colorado Rockies, no less—rates as the best-ever game score (102) for a no-no.

Best Milestone Home Run(s)

On April 22, Albert Pujols became the 26th player all-time to join the 500-home run club. Not only did the Los Angeles Angels first baseman become the first player ever to do so by hitting Nos. 499 and 500 in the same game, he kinda called his shots too.

Best Battery Performance

It's always fun when something that's never happened before in baseball happens. Like San Francisco Giants stars Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner smacking grand slams July 13, the final day before the All-Star break, to become the first battery mates to do so in the same game. Bumgarner, as you might've guessed, picked up the win.

And if there were also a Best-Hitting Pitcher Award—hey, there could be, since we're making these up as we go along—that would go to Bumgarner too. The left-hander, who hits from the right side, led all pitchers in runs (10), RBI (15) and homers (four), including two grand slams—or one more than Derek Jeter hit in his entire 20-year career.

Best Streak

More Giants love.

There were some other big streaks in 2014, like Nolan Arenado hitting in 28 in a row to set the Rockies franchise mark or the Seattle Mariners' Felix Hernandez's record 16 straight starts in which he pitched at least seven innings and allowed no more than two runs.

But the sexiest of all the streaks belongs to none other than Yusmeiro Petit, the right-handed sometimes-starter, sometimes-reliever for San Francisco who set down an MLB-record 46 consecutive batters from July 22 to August 28. In all, Petit was perfect over 15.1 innings in which he struck out 21, a stretch that, coincidentally, was broken up by Jordan Lyles, the opposing pitcher.

Best Moment

Look, we got a lot of Derek Jeter this year. Like, a lot a lot. That's what happens when an iconic player and ambassador of the game hangs 'em up.

So if you're sick of The Captain by now and want to yell and scream that there were better—or, at least, less serendipitously sappy—moments than when Jeter slapped the walk-off RBI single to right field (of course) in his final game at Yankee Stadium, be our guest.

But that was just about as perfect an ending to a fantastic Hall of Fame career as anyone could have scripted.

Best Coincidence

While we're on the topic of serendipity and great players saying so long, here's the hard-to-believe story of the connection between retiring Chicago White Sox star Paul Konerko and fan Chris Claeys, via Scott Merkin of MLB.com:

"

Chris Claeys surprised Paul Konerko with the baseball from his grand slam during Game 2 of the 2005 World Series as part of Paul Konerko Day ceremonies on Saturday night at U.S. Cellular Field. But in a strange twist, Claeys gave away one baseball and left with another one.

In the third inning of the game against the Royals, Claeys snagged a foul ball on the second pitch from Royals reliever Louis Coleman to of all people, Konerko. Claeys then talked about the catch and the gift of the grand slam baseball later on the White Sox television broadcast.

"This has been an awesome experience," Claeys said. "I'm having a really great day!"

"

Imagine the odds—as if they even exist.

Statistics are accurate through Oct. 15 and courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs, unless otherwise noted.

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