2017 MLB Awards

Here is the baseball post intro.  Now for the rest!

AL Rookie

1. Aaron Judge - OF, New York
2. Matt Olson - 1B, Oakland
3. Matt Chapman - 3B, Oakland
4. Andrew Benintendi - OF, Boston

There probably isn't much need to go beyond the top spot on this list, but the A's had multiple good rookies!  I'm not sure if the new young core is a championship core, but it's at least something resembling hope.

AL Cy Young

1. Corey Kluber - Cleveland
2. Chris Sale - Boston
3. Luis Severino - New York
4. Craig Kimbrel - Boston

Chris Sale was close to winning his third straight Bogacz Cy Young, but a pedestrian September brought him back to Earth.  As a result, Kluber's slightly better control and ground ball rate earns him the nod.  Still, it's possible we never see a 300 strikeout season again, so don't take him for granted.

AL MVP

1. Jose Altuve - 2B, Houston
2. Aaron Judge - OF, New York
3. Mike Trout - OF, Los Angeles
4. Corey Kluber - SP, Cleveland
5. Chris Sale - SP, Boston
6. Jose Ramirez - 2B/3B, Cleveland

Mike Trout could have made it easy by not getting hurt and missing a quarter of the season.  Chris Sale could have made it easy and kept up his insane rate stats through September.  Instead, we're left with just two amazingly good seasons to choose from.  Judge was slightly more superlative, but his clutchiness (which I don't normally care about) was so extremely bad that I defaulted to Altuve.

NL Rookie

1. Cody Bellinger - 1B/OF, Los Angeles
2. Rhys Hoskins - 1B/OF, Philadelphia
3. Austin Barnes - C/2B, Los Angeles
4. Ozzie Albies - 2B, Atlanta
5. Luke Weaver - SP, St Louis
6. Luis Castillo - SP, Cincinnati

A perfectly average NL rookie class features a runaway winner, a couple of guys who did nothing but mash in the high-upper minors until their teams couldn't hide them anymore, a young stud who'll only get better, and a couple of surprising pitchers.

NL Cy Young

1. Max Scherzer - Washington
2. Clayton Kershaw - Los Angeles
3. Stephen Strasburg - Washington
4. Kenley Jansen - Los Angeles

Kershaw would have won this pretty easily if not for his injury.  And even with his 25 inning deficit, he measures up favorably to Scherzer.  But a rare problem with the home run means he doesn't quite close the gap enough to pull it off.

NL MVP

1. Joey Votto - 1B, Cincinnati
2. Giancarlo Stanton - OF, Miami
3. Kris Bryant - 3B, Chicago
4. Anthony Rendon - 3B, Washington
5. Charlie Blackmon - OF, Colorado

All of these guys had worthy seasons, but none quite blew me away enough to make this easy.  I went with Votto because he has the best bat and metrics probably underrated his defense if only a touch (he also played all 162 for whatever that's worth).  But I'm not going to argue if you pick anyone else.