Bleacher Report's Full MLB Awards Preview, Predictions
With the announcement of the National League and American League Comeback Player of the Year awards—Prince Fielder won in the AL and Matt Harvey in the NL—MLB trophy season is officially in full swing.
As Fielder and the Dark Knight polish their hardware, let's look ahead to the big prizes: Manager of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Cy Young and MVP.
Finalists for the Baseball Writers Association of America honors will be announced on Nov. 10, with winners crowned in the ensuing days, culminating with the MVPs on Nov. 19.
In the meantime, let's preview each award and make some educated predictions.
Some of the races are virtual locks, while others could come down to a photo finish. In arriving at our predictions, we considered stats (naturally), preseason expectations and whether players and managers guided their teams to the postseason, since BBWAA voters always seem to take that into account, fair or not.
Finally, keep in mind that this is who we think will win, not necessarily who we think should win.
As ever, feel free to sound off with your picks in the comments, and proceed when ready.
NL Manager of the Year: Joe Maddon
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Of the five NL skippers whose teams made the playoffs, only Don Mattingly—whom the Los Angeles Dodgers jettisoned after the season—seems unlikely to get much Manager of the Year support.
Clint Hurdle and the Pittsburgh Pirates won 98 games and a third consecutive wild-card slot. Mike Matheny weathered injuries to his ace and key members of the lineup and still guided the St. Louis Cardinals to the best record in baseball. And Terry Collins helped the New York Mets unseat the heavily favored Washington Nationals and claim their first division title in nearly a decade.
The award, however, is Joe Maddon's all the way.
Sure, the young, talented Cubbies were a sexy preseason pick. But there were still questions about whether this was the year they would taste October.
Maddon and company answered them emphatically, and Chicago finished with 97 wins, a total the club has equaled just one other time since 1946.
Noting that the Cubs succeeded with a raft of rookies, Steve Rosenbloom of the Chicago Tribune broke down what made Maddon's role and skill set so essential:
"...Maddon’s game of toy soldiers evidences his ability to put young players in position to succeed when the players themselves might not know what’s good for them.
Forget the magician in the clubhouse, the petting zoo on the field and the onesies on the plane. What matters is how a team plays, and Maddon coaxed, demanded and worked his own magic to create a team that will play in the postseason for the first time since 2008.
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No, the curse wasn't broken. And yes, Chicago fell in the National League Championship Series to Collins' Mets. Remember, though, these prizes are about the regular season only. And on that front, the Cubs' bespectacled skipper has the edge.
AL Manager of the Year: Jeff Banister, Texas Rangers
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This is easily the most wide-open of any awards race and the toughest to predict.
All five of the managers from the AL's playoff clubs—the Texas Rangers' Jeff Banister, the Houston Astros' A.J. Hinch, the Kansas City Royals' Ned Yost, the Toronto Blue Jays' John Gibbons and the New York Yankees' Joe Girardi—warrant consideration.
And you can add rookie skipper Paul Molitor, who kept the upstart Minnesota Twins in contention well into September, to the list.
Molitor is actually a strong contender, since BBWAA voters favor skippers whose teams win more than they're expected to.
With that in mind, though, Banister and Hinch really stand out. The Royals won their first division title since 1985, but they came in as the defending AL champs. The Blue Jays ended a 22-year playoff drought, but some of the credit must be handed off to the team's big trade-deadline additions. And while the Yankees snapped a two-year postseason drought with a wild-card berth, they're still the Yankees, big-spending bullies in perpetuity.
The Rangers and Astros, meanwhile, weren't supposed to go anywhere. And yet the Texas twosome finished first and second in the AL West, respectively, and both crashed the playoff party.
We'll give a slight edge to Banister, since the Rangers won a division title that basically no one thought they could. Truly, though, it wouldn't be shocking—or a travesty—if any of the managers mentioned here took home the prize.
NL Rookie of the Year: Kris Bryant, Chicago Cubs
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The Cubs' Kris Bryant entered the season as the favorite to win NL Rookie of the Year and finished as the favorite.
In between, various other contenders emerged. Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Joc Pederson raked early, but faded in the second half. And San Francisco Giants third baseman Matt Duffy, Pittsburg Pirates infielder Jung- ho Kang and New York Mets right-hander Noah Syndergaard made cases of their own.
Bryant, though, is the painfully obvious choice.
His 6.5 WAR was the 12th-highest in baseball, per FanGraphs, and he led or tied for the lead among rookies in doubles (31), home runs (26) and RBI (99).
Plus, he played all over the diamond, logging time at third base, first base and all three outfield positions.
"It comes down to the personal agenda of the player," Maddon said of his power-hitting Swiss Army knife in September, per ESPN.com's Jesse Rogers. "Bryant is about winning, only."
Perhaps that's true, but the accolades and awards will come regardless.
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AL Rookie of the Year: Carlos Correa, Houston Astros
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This race boils down to a pair of shortstops: Carlos Correa of the Astros and the Francisco Lindor of the Indians. And it's a doozy.
Correa has the edge in home runs (22 to 12) and OPS (.857 to .835). But Lindor's .313 batting average outpaced Correa's .279.
And Lindor had a clear edge defensively. His 10 defensive runs saved (DRS) and 10.5 ultimate zone rating (UZR) blow away Correa's marks of zero and minus-6.
On the numbers, then, this looks like Lindor's award, particularly since we're talking about premium defense at a premium defensive position.
But Correa's pop stands out in this power-starved era. And remember, the Astros made the postseason, while the Tribe stayed home.
It seems unfair to hold that against Lindor, and plenty of Rookies of the Year have hailed from non-playoff teams, including both of last year's winners, Jose Abreu of the Chicago White Sox and the New York Mets' Jacob deGrom.
In a battle this tight, however, dingers and Houston's surprise wild-card berth could tip the scales toward Correa.
NL Cy Young: Zack Greinke, Los Angeles Dodgers
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Here we have a three-horse race, and they're all thoroughbred studs.
There's Dodgers right-hander Zack Greinke, who posted the best single-season ERA in the 21st century, per Baseball-Reference.com.
There's Cubs right-hander Jake Arrieta, whose 1.77 ERA stands toe-to-toe with Greinke's 1.66 mark and who pitched more innings (229 to 222.2) and amassed more strikeouts (236 to 200). He also threw a no-hitter, if that does anything for you.
Finally, there's Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw, the reigning NL Cy Young and MVP, who posted a 2.13 ERA, but led the pack in innings (232.2) and strikeouts (301).
There is no bad choice here, yet there can only be one.
Chicago and Los Angeles each made the playoffs. And while the Dodgers did it as NL West champs and the Cubs as a wild-card team, the Cubbies won more games and played in a tougher division, so we can't use that as a tiebreaker.
It's possible Greinke and Kershaw's status as teammates could hurt them, since they may theoretically split some votes. Most voters, though, will look past the laundry. And we're guessing many will focus on Greinke's historically minuscule ERA, even as the analytics crowd moves onto other metrics.
It'd be no great surprise if Arrieta won, and a convincing case can be made that Kershaw deserves to win for the third straight year.
But all things considered, we'll put Greinke down as the leader—if only by a nose.
AL Cy Young: Dallas Keuchel, Houston Astros
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Who do you like, the beard or the (possibly soon-to-be former) Blue Jay?
That's the question voters will be asking as they choose between a pair of dominant southpaws: Dallas Keuchel of the Astros and David Price of the Blue Jays.
Keuchel, the hirsute 27-year-old who helped propel Houston to its surprise October appearance, posted a 2.48 ERA and 1.017 WHIP with 216 strikeouts in an AL-leading 232 innings.
Price, the 30-year-old trade-deadline cavalry who pushed Toronto over the postseason hump, posted an AL-leading 2.45 ERA and 1.076 WHIP with 225 strikeouts in 220.1 innings.
Those are remarkably similar stat lines, which explains why Price's 6.4 WAR and Keuchel's 6.1 WAR are also neck-and-neck.
Keuchel has the sheen of a breakout campaign, while Price has been here before, winning the award in 2012 with the Tampa Bay Rays.
That could be the selling point, with voters viewing Keuchel as the progressive, forward-looking choice. But this one figures to be tight, and if Keuchel does win, it could be by a whisker.
NL MVP: Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals
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The last thing many fans probably remember about Bryce Harper is his getting throttled by teammate Jonathan Papelbon in the dugout before heading down the tunnel—angry, dejected, dare we say defeated?
That's a shame, because the brash Washington Nationals outfielder truly had a season for the ages.
Harper paced the National League in OPS (1.109), tied for the lead in home runs (42) and led all of baseball with 9.5 WAR.
Some voters will give cursory nods to other offensive stars, such as the Arizona Diamondbacks' Paul Goldschmidt and the Cincinnati Reds' Joey Votto. You might even see a dissenter or two throw their support behind Yoenis Cespedes, who played a scant 57 regular-season games in the NL after a July trade to the Mets.
Harper's only legitimate MVP competition comes from the Greinke/Arrieta/Kershaw three-headed monster. And while each of those hurlers deserves consideration, it's unlikely the BBWAA voters will tap a pitcher for a second straight season, particularly when there's a trio from which to choose.
No, the Nats didn't make the postseason. And yes, they suffered through an epically disappointing, dysfunctional year.
But at the tender age of 23, Harper solidified his place among MLB's firmament of stars. And in all likelihood, he's just getting started.
AL MVP: Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels
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Since 1995, only six MVPs have been awarded to players from non-playoff teams, and during that span it's never happened in both leagues in the same year.
So we're bucking tradition by picking the Los Angeles Angels' Mike Trout to claim the prize for a second consecutive season, after selecting Harper to win it in the NL.
Like the Nats, the Halos missed the playoffs, finishing in third place in the AL West behind Texas and Houston.
None of the blame for that can be passed off to Trout, though.
The 24-year-old center fielder posted a .299 average and .991 OPS to go along with 41 home runs and an AL-best 9.0 WAR.
His chief (and only) competition is Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson, whose .297 average, 41 home runs, .939 OPS and 8.7 WAR put him in the same stream as Trout.
If you use the playoff argument, Donaldson gets points. And while it's a largely unfair measure considering how much it relies on factors beyond a player's control, Donaldson tallied an eye-popping 123 RBI to Trout's 90.
Others, such as the Baltimore Orioles' Manny Machado and Kansas City Royals' Lorenzo Cain, will get a handful of honorable-mention votes. But this is a clash between Trout and Donaldson, period.
And while it's essentially a coin flip, we'll go with Trout to buck history and win where his team failed to do so.
All statistics current as of Nov. 5 and courtesy of FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.
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