2019 MLB Awards

I paid less attention to baseball this year than ever before, but I said I would do this as long as there is a Mike Trout to venerate, so here we go.

AL Rookie

1. Yordan Alvarez - DH, Houston

A crop of rookies so weak that I listed only the guy that clearly distinguished himself from the group.  There's been a steady stream of amazing young talent entering the league, so it only makes sense there'd be an off year eventually.

AL Cy Young

1. Gerritt Cole - Houston

2. Justin Verlander - Houston

3. Shane Bieber - Cleveland

4. Charlie Morton - Tampa Bay

5. Liam Hendricks - Oakland

6. Lance Lynn - Texas

Verlander had ten more innings and a slightly better walk rate than Cole, the combination of which would normally lock up the award for me.  But Cole set a new standard for just how many batters a starter could strike out and still be effective, so he takes it.  Honorable mention goes to Zack Greinke for pitching well across both leagues.

AL MVP

1. Mike Trout - OF, Los Angeles

2. Alex Bregman - 3B, Houston

3. Marcus Semien - SS, Oakland

4. Gerritt Cole - SP, Houston

5. Justin Verlander - SP, Houston

Bregman's strong finish and my personal affinity towards LSU baseball alums isn't enough to overcome the Mike Trout experience.  But I want to talk about how the A's last run of success (2012-2014) led to MVP candidate Marcus Semien.  The A's rotation was flagging in 2014 so they traded uber-prospect Addison Russell for 1.5 years of Jeff Samardjiza.  This was enough to get them to the playoffs, but not enough to get them past the wildcard game.  After the season, the team decided to re-invest in the pipeline, so they flipped The Shark to the White Sox for a package that included Semien.  He was not considered a top prospect by many (there were exceptions), but the A's saw a guy that had the raw talent to become something great.  And now five years later, he had a career season for a playoff team by doing every single baseball-related thing well.  What a delight.

NL Rookie

1. Fernando Tatis Jr. - SS, San Diego

2. Pete Alonso - 1B, New York

3. Mike Soroka - SP, Atlanta

4. Chris Paddack - SP, San Diego

I consider playing time as a primary facto for Cy Young and MVP but I consider it very little for this award.  The reason is that rookies are called up at seemingly arbitrary times of the season (mostly to avoid paying them), and it doesn't seem fair to punish them for that.  I also consider it more impressive to produce an amazing half-season at 20 than a very, very good full season at 24.  So Tatis takes this by a hair.

NL Cy Young

1. Jacob deGrom - New York

2. Max Scherzer - Washington

3. Hyun-Jin Ryu - Los Angeles

4. Walker Buehler - Los Angeles

5. Stephen Strasburg - Washington

Scherzer was slightly better than deGrom, but he fell 30 innings short of him due to injury.  Really won't be disappointed either way.  In other news, the Dodgers' pitchers don't walk anybody, which is probably good.

NL MVP

1. Christian Yelich - OF, Milwaukee

2. Cody Bellinger - OF, Los Angeles

3. Anthony Rendon - 3B, Washington

Same logic as the AL MVP, but somehow even closer.  The hardest pick of the year, and maybe the hardest pick I've ever had to make (for MLB awards at least).