The 2014 MLB season was certainly not the craziest on record. Many division leads were large and have been held for quite some time, which has led to minimal intrigue in the last few weeks. Most of the division winners were the teams we expected to win their divisions, so there hasn't even been much drama there. That said, even the most by the book seasons of baseball are still season of baseball. Since baseball is awesome, that means there is still so much awesomeness to celebrate, that one doesn't have the time to fully appreciate it all until it's over. Given that the regular season is now over, I will perform that appreciation here, by picking the winners of the major MJB awards.
As usual, I am just picking the six awards I care the most about. Everything else is either too far afield of my interests (manager, executive) or too silly (comeback player) for me to spend time writing about. Also as usual, I will just list the number of players I feel like for each award, instead of fitting my picks within the framework of the BBWAA. Perhaps when the BBWAA starts admitting people who occasionally post to a personal blog, I will change my tune.
*Since I don't write about baseball often, I always like to note that the majority of stats you see below come from Fangraphs. For a good explanation of the stats used in this post, see the Fangraphs library. For a good explanation of why we should use these stats, even though they aren't perfect, see here.
NL Rookie
1. Jacob deGrom - SP, NY Mets
2. Billy Hamilton - OF, Cincinnati
Let's get this one out of the way first. The NL rookie crop was not particularly deep this year, which left just two real contenders for the award. While I like Billy Hamilton and understand that he created a lot of value by being great at defense alone, I have to give the nod to deGrom. Hamilton is lauded as a supreme baserunner, but was caught stealing on 30% of his stolen base attempts. He also put up a wRC+ of just 79 (meaning he was 21% worse at batting than an average MLB batter), which shows that there are a few significant holes on the offensive side of his game. Jacob deGrom, on the other hand, was one of the most pleasant surprises in baseball this year, which helps to give the Mets legitimate hopes for a top rotation next year. deGrom struck out 25.5% of all batters faced in his 140 Major League innings, which is a higher rate than he achieved at any level of the minors. That he was able to almost match Hamilton's fWAR in only about two-thirds of a season is as good of an argument as any for him to win the award.
NL Cy Young
1. Clayton Kershaw - LA Dodgers
2. Stephen Strasburg - Washington
3. Jordan Zimmerman - Washington
4. Zack Greinke - LA Dodgers
5. Adam Wainwright - St. Louis
I was strongly considering just putting Kershaw's name here, and leaving it at that. I don't think anyone would blame me, given that this is what he has done this season:
27 starts, 198.1 innings pitched - an average of over 7 innings per start
1.77 ERA - First in the NL
31.9% Strikeout Percentage - First in the NL
4.1% Walk Percentage - Fourth in the NL (slacker)
51.8% Ground Ball Percentage - Eighth in the NL among qualified starters
1.81 FIP - First in the NL by over half a run
2.08 xFIP - First in the NL by nearly half a run
2.09 SIERA - First in the NL by over half a run
7.2 fWAR - A full two wins ahead of everyone else in the NL, in spite of the relatively low innings total
So yeah, Kershaw was a comfortable first in ERA and every reputable ERA estimator. Sabermetrics often open up baseball-related debates to a wider swath of possibilities than the narrow views often held by mainstream sportswriters. This is one time where that is not the case. Kershaw was and is the best pitcher in the NL by a mile. There is no debate.
All that said, there are some worthy runners up that I wanted to take a moment to recognize. Stephen Strasburg finally put together a full season of awesomeness, going over 200 innings for the first time, while still maintaining an insane strikeout rate (27.9% - 2nd among qualified starters, behind you-know-who). His xFIP (my preferred measure of pitcher quality) of 2.56 was a comfortable second in the NL, which shows that his overall quality as a pitcher absolutely matches the initial hype from his rookie season. Jordan Zimmerman almost matched his teammate in excellence, attaining both a career high in strikeout rate and a career low in walk rate (3.6% - 2nd in the NL), which led to the best season of an already great career. Unlike the two Nationals on the list, Greinke and Wainwright didn't quite have career years. However, both continued to march along as top-ten pitchers, which is impressive enough to end up on my list.
NL MVP
1. Jonathan Lucroy - C, Milwaukee
2. Clayton Kershaw - SP, LA Dodgers
3. Andrew McCutchen - OF, Pittsburgh
4. Buster Posey - C, San Francisco
5. Giancarlo Stanton - OF, Miami
6. Anthony Rendon - 3B, Washington
7. Carlos Gomez - OF, Milwaukee
8. Russell Martin - C, Pittsburgh
The NL MVP race is quite odd this year. In spite of the lack of a slam-dunk candidate, the field is still very strong. Certain Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw will probably run away with the award in reality, and the last two winners (McCutchen and Posey) both had amazing seasons that were basically of the same quality as the years they won. Young guys Giancarlo Stanton and Anthony Rendon had their first true superstar seasons, while veterans like Carlos Gomez and Russell Martin turned in fantastic efforts.
What makes the NL MVP race the most odd, however, is that I am picking none of those players to win the award. Instead I am going with the guy who has sneakily become the best catcher in baseball, Jonathan Lucroy. His traditional numbers likely won't wow you (13 HRs, 69 RBI), but his batting line of .301/.373/.465 would be spectacular even if he wasn't a catcher, and his 6.3 fWAR (4th in the NL) displays his overall value quite well. Of course, that gaudy WAR total doesn't even include his typically awesome framing numbers, which adds 2-3 wins of value to his resume.* Even though the dark art of measuring this additional impact of catching is in its infancy, there's a lot of evidence to support the claim that Lucroy is among the best as helping his pitchers out. You can't go wrong championing Clayton Kershaw for the MVP award, but I think a full evaluation of what it means to be valuable supports Lucroy as just as worthy of a recipient.
*There's a lot of debate as to where the value of framing should be assigned. Of course, credit should go to the catcher, since he's the one doing it. That said, if a pitcher knows he's dealing with a top catcher, he's more likely to work the corners knowing that the extra strikes are there for the taking. If a pitcher can execute that game plan successfully, he should surely share in some of the credit.
AL Rookie
1. Jose Abreu - 1B, Chicago White Sox
2. Masahiro Tanaka - SP, NY Yankees
3. Dellin Betances - RP, NY Yankees
4. Mookie Betts - 2B, Boston
5. Marcus Stroman - SP, Toronto
6. Colin McHugh - SP, Houston
7. Kevin Kiermaier - OF, Tampa Bay
8. George Springer - OF, Houston
9. Danny Santana - SS, Minnesota
Tanaka was well on his way to winning this (and maybe other awards), and then got injured. Thus, Jose Abreu ends up winning the award handily. I was tempted to still give the honor to Tanaka given how freaking good he was (a 2.58 xFIP shows how amazing he could be if he could just keep the ball in the yard a little more), but Abreu's 36 homers and .383 OBP is such an impressive combination over a full season that I couldn't bring myself to do it. I agree with others that it's a little odd to give this award to players that established themselves in other leagues, but they are technically rookies, so they end up in the top two spots.
You may have noticed that Mookie Betts garnered the #4 spot on this list ahead of many players who played a full season or close to one. While I strongly consider playing time in the MVP and CY Young, it matters less to me in the Rookie of the year award. The main reason for this is that rookies can't really control when they're called up and when they will play. Even if you're raking in AAA, you might be held down for several reasons: lack of room on the MLB roster, not wanting to insert a rookie into a pennant race immediately, or waiting until the super-two deadline to add an extra year of team control. Given that you lose your rookie eligibility after just 45 games played or 50 innings pitched, I like to make sure to recognize guys like Betts who haven't played as much as others, but have clearly shown that they are a fantastic player with a long career ahead of them.
AL Cy Young
1. Felix Hernandez - Seattle
2. Corey Kluber - Cleveland
3. Phil Hughes - Minnesota
4. David Price - Tampa Bay/Detroit
5. Chris Sale - Chicago White Sox
6. Jon Lester - Boston/Oakland
This is the most insanely loaded ballot for any award in my four years of doing this. Max Scherzer basically matched his Cy Young season, and doesn't even make the list because a typical Cy Young season apparently isn't superlative enough. Jon Lester had a career season, and essentially pitched the A's into the playoffs (2.35 ERA in 11 starts). Chris Sale put up the best rate stats in the AL (30.4% strikeout %), and only takes fifth because injuries are stupid. David Price led the league with 248 innings and a 23.1% K%-BB% (the best back-of-the-envelope pitcher quality calculation). How on Earth is he only fourth? And finally, Phil Hughes only put up the best strikeout to walk ratio in the history of the sport.
In spite of all those worthy contenders, the race essentially comes down to two men: Corey Kluber and Felix Hernandez. Both were near perfect this season, so any attempt to separate the two is going to come down to some nit-picking. Felix took the league crown in xFIP (2.51 to 2.57 for Kluber), while a low home run rate gives Kluber the edge in FIP (2.35 to 2.56). Kluber struck a few more people out, while Felix limited walks slightly better. Felix induced more ground balls, while Kluber was able to keep the ball in the yard in spite of more fly balls. The pitiful Indians defense (29th in the majors in UZR) strongly suggests that Kluber had to go it alone when he was on the mound, but Felix wasn't exactly pitching in front of a bunch of gold glovers either. In the end, I am forced to go to a Bayesian tiebreaker, and give my vote to the person who I thought was the best prior to the season. Since Felix has been doing this for almost a decade, he gets the nod.
AL MVP
1. Mike Trout - OF, LA Angels
2. Felix Hernandez - SP, Seattle
3. Corey Kluber - SP, Cleveland
4. David Price - SP, Tampa Bay/Detroit
5. Jose Bautista - OF, Toronto
6. Michael Brantley - OF, Cleveland
7. Josh Donaldson - 3B, Oakland
8. Adrian Beltre - 3B, Texas
9. Ben Zobrist - 2B/SS/OF, Tampa Bay*
10. Alex Gordon - OF, Kansas City
Mike Trout will most likely actually win the MVP this year, which means I won't have to make an impassioned plea for him as I usually do. What is interesting about this is that Mike Trout MVP season is easily his worst full season. His walk rate dropped from 15% to 12%. His strikeout rate climbed to 26%, and his 184 Ks led the league. His batting average dropped below .300 for the first time. His fielding numbers were decidedly below average, according to both UZR and DRS. He only stole 16 bases, after stealing more than 30 each of the past two years.
And yet, in spite of all of this, he still deserves to run away with the award. Basically, he was so good in 2012-2013 that he could survive a mild downturn in production and still be the best player in the world. The increase in strikeouts came with an increase in power, and his career-high 36 homers, helped power him to a 167 wRC+ (just ahead of Victor Martinez for best in the AL). He played 157 games, which shows a durability that some other candidates lacked. Playing a slightly below-average center field still makes you one of the best defenders in the game. Baserunning is more than just steals, as Trout added roughly half a win on the basepaths. And finally, if you care about context-dependent stats, Trout led the majors in both WPA and RE24. Mike Trout will not always put up 10-win seasons, but he just might always be the best player anyway.
*There are too many players here to write about everyone, but I did want to mention that Ben Zobrist has been the second most valuable player in baseball over the past six years.** That is insane. Ben Zobrist is and probably always will be the most underrated player in the game.
**Your daily "Trout is in another stratosphere" reminder: Trout is 10th on that list, in spite of not becoming a full time player until halfway through that time period.
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