5 Important Takeaways from 2014 MLB Awards Week
Major League Baseball's awards week is over. But just because all of the hardware has been handed out doesn't mean there's nothing left to discuss about the honors.
On the whole, the voting and results for Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year, Cy Young and MVP offer some interesting nuggets and tidbits that serve as important takeaways.
Like these in the following slides.
Rookie of the Year
1 of 5The Takeaway: Numbers trump noise.
Despite some scuttlebutt to the contrary, voters ultimately didn't care that Jose Abreu is a 27-year-old, fully formed player who had been a professional in Cuba's top league, the Serie Nacional, for years.
Not only did Abreu win the AL Rookie of the Year Award, he won it unanimously.
Transitioning to and achieving success in the major leagues right away is a challenge for anyone. That includes an American-born prospect who shot up the ranks to debut at age 19, like Bryce Harper, the 2012 NL Rookie of the Year.
Or a slower-to-develop type who didn't get to the bigs until he was nearly 26, like this year's NL ROY, Jacob deGrom.
Or, in fact, a foreigner who had to adapt to a whole new league, country and way of life, like Abreu. That the Chicago White Sox first baseman hit .317/.383/.581 with 36 homers and 107 RBI was more than enough for voters to overlook any possible bias.
Manager of the Year
2 of 5
The Takeaway: Success as a first-year manager has sway.
The NL Manager of the Year race was one of the tougher calls to make, and the honor could have gone to either Clint Hurdle of the Pittsburgh Pirates or Bruce Bochy of the San Francisco Giants as easily as to the Washington Nationals' Matt Williams, who was the choice.
While Hurdle and Bochy's teams both overcame injuries and inconsistency, both had won this award already—Hurdle last year and Bochy back in 1996 with the San Diego Padres—and now have 12 and 20 years of experience on the bench, respectively.
Williams, on the other hand, just completed year one as a skipper, and not just in the majors—at any level. Adjusting to a new gig on the fly while guiding a team that entered 2014 as a no-doubt contender to a 96-win season—tops in the NL—isn't an easy task.
That narrative helped Williams earn 18 of the 30 first-place votes.
Cy Young
3 of 5
The Takeaway: Sometimes recent performance carries more weight.
AL Cy Young challenger Corey Kluber taking down the favored Felix Hernandez—who led the American League in both ERA and WHIP this year, won the 2010 award and has long been one of the best pitchers around—wound up being the biggest surprise of all of the awards.
How'd the Cleveland Indians right-hander do it? By pwning the competition (yes, with a "p") over the second half, and especially down the stretch.
After the break, Kluber sported a ridiculous 1.73 ERA, 0.96 WHIP and 11.0 K/9 in 14 starts, and over his final five turns, those numbers were 1.12, 0.92 and 12.1. Oh, and he capped that stretch with three consecutive double-digit strikeout games, including back-to-back 14-whiff outings—the first time that had been done since Randy Johnson in 2004.
"You get in those grooves where you kind of feel like everything's sort of clicking, you're not fighting anything,'' Kluber said via Jorge L. Ortiz of USA Today. "I think I got into that for the majority of the second half.''
There's a good chance Kluber's late-season dominance jumped out in voters' minds when ballots were due before the playoffs started. That's more or less how a one-year upstart edged a 10-year stalwart.
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MVP Part I
4 of 5
The Takeaway: Persistence pays off—or maybe it's still all about RBI.
Or if you prefer: The third time really can be the charm. That's how it played out for Mike Trout, who famously—and controversially—had finished second in the AL MVP voting in both 2012 and 2013, both times to Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers, before ascending to the throne this year.
Helping lead the Los Angeles Angels to the postseason and the BRIB (best record in baseball) after two disappointing campaigns certainly was a big factor in Trout taking home his first MVP, and doing so unanimously to boot.
Of course, another possibility simply could be that voters went with Trout because he led the American League in RBI—a stat that has long been favored by MVP voters—with a career-high 111. If that's actually the reason the Baseball Writers' Association of America finally decided he was most valuable, well, it slightly dampens the result.
MVP Part II
5 of 5The Takeaway: Pitchers can win MVP.
Indeed, and Clayton Kershaw just proved as much by getting the nod over outfielders Giancarlo Stanton of the Miami Marlins and Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who was last year's NL MVP.
Thing is, for a pitcher to win, it requires a consistently and unquestionably dominant campaign, perhaps even a historic one, both anecdotally and statistically. Especially in the NL, where no pitcher had won since Bob Gibson—all the way back in 1968.
Kershaw's 15-strikeout no-hitter, which was a Hanley Ramirez throwing error away from being arguably the most perfect nine-inning game ever pitched, met the anecdotal requirement (highlight above).
And in posting the lowest ERA (1.77) since Pedro Martinez's 1.74 in 2000, he also won the MLB ERA title for the fourth straight season, something that had never been done before, which satisfies the statistical.
Statistics are accurate through the 2014 season and courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.
To talk baseball or fantasy baseball, check in with me on Twitter: @JayCat11.
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