MLB: Jux Berg’s Year End Awards

This season, due obviously to regular steroid testing, nobody hit any homers and everybody struck out a ton.  Let’s ignore the obvious awards and come up with some new ones.  

The “Can Somebody Sneak Me A Needle” Award goes to Adrian Beltre (SEA), Miguel Tejada (HOU). 

Beltre magically pumped out 48 HR while batting .334 in 2004 for the Dodgers in a contract year (of course).  Thing is, if you take out that HGH-bloated season, his career highs are a .290 avg and 26 HR.  This year he hit 25 HR, which was actually considered a pretty good season by the local Seattle media.  In my opinion, Adrian Beltre shot up more than Lyle Alzado (“It’s a f***in’ roast, groany groan groan.”) in ‘04, and without the “special help,” Beltre is about as scary at the plate as former Philly Mickey Morandini.

Speaking of jamming a big box of steroids into your bloodstream, check out “Houston's big free agent signing” Miguel Tejada’s power numbers in ’08.  The 2002 AL MVP (34 HR, 131 RBI that season) came up smaller than Roseanne Barr’s calorie count after a one-minute treadmill workout this season.  Thirteen homers?!  In 632 AB?!  We all knew he drank the steroid cocktail (he admitted it), but to go from those kinds of numbers in pitcher-friendly Oakland Coliseum to this weak sh*t in bandbox Minute Maid Park pretty much catches Tejada red-handed (and deflated-armed).

The “What Happened To My Big Scary Arm” Award goes to Milwaukee’s Eric Gagne.

Some people say it’s tougher to tell which pitchers juiced up, but Eric Gagne is the most obvious example of all-time.  Packed with confidence, a 100 mph heater, and all the finest, state-of-the-art steroids money can buy, Gagne went from a pointless starting pitcher with a 5.00 ERA to a lights out closer back in 2002.  Gagne locked up 152 saves from 2002-04, while striking out a ridiculous 365 batters in 247 innings.  Then, Gagne’s arm exploded.  Since ’04, Gagne has been a disabled list frequenter.  Yet somehow, Milwaukee gave him ten stacks to replace Francisco Cordero this season (apparently Doug Melvin doesn’t know anything at all about the after-effects of PEDs), and Gagne rewarded the Brew Crew by giving up more homers than games-saved (including one to Corey Patterson!).  Yikes.

The “Worst Player In The League” Award is shared by Andruw Jones (LAD) and Corey Patterson (CIN).

You probably already know that the season turned in by Andruw Jones is basically the weakest performance of all-time.  A few light-hitting middle infielders may challenge the guy, but to go from 50 HR three seasons ago to THREE in 209 AB this season while hitting .158 is inexplicable.  Nobody can explic (I’m making it a word) this.  Yeah, he’s fat as sh*t now, but big deal.   So are a lot of major leaguers.  76 K and only 33 hits?  This is a very unexpected drop-off, especially in the minds of the Dodgers’ front office, who shelled out $14.7 million (ouch!) for the former Brave.  But hey, at least they made the playoffs, so it could be worse.

Now, the awful, excruciating season turned in by Cincinnati’s Corey Patterson WAS expected—by me, my boys, and pretty much anybody with an SAT score over 27.  When the Reds signed this stupid little chucker because of one decent week of spring training, I wanted to punch a concrete wall.  Not only is this guy absolutely atrocious at the plate (career OBP .291!!), he doesn’t seem to even care that he’s killing his team.  Kudos to Dusty Baker though, showing his gigantic IQ by placing this out-machine in the leadoff spot all season.  Awesome. 


That’s all for now.  More to come.  If I feel like it.