The end of the 2014 MLB regular season is upon us, and for those who do not have a playoff team to cheer for, the focus shifts to postseason awards. Who will take the AL and NL MVP? Who’s the front runner for the Cy Young?
In a matter of a week or so, these will be relevant questions. So, in the meantime, here are my predictions for each of the major MLB awards.
AL MVP
This was an interesting race, given that the two candidates last year, Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera, are both having down years. However, a down year for these two doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t compete for MVP.
Trout leads the AL in WAR (8.0) and RBIs (110), two stats that are important to voters in the MVP race. He also sits in the Top 10 in OBP and OPS and he’s third in home runs in the AL behind Nelson Cruz and Chris Carter.
Yes, Cruz leads the league in home runs, but he’s batting just .275 with a 4.8 WAR. Those aren’t numbers that will catapult him into the discussion. It’s a down season for offensive numbers, but Trout’s still shines above everyone else.
AL Cy Young
The AL Cy Young will be one of the closest in all of baseball. There could easily be two deserving winners of this award, but to my knowledge, they cannot share it. The Chicago White Sox’s Chris Sale and the Seattle Mariners’ Felix Hernandez have been two of the top pitchers in baseball all season.
Sale leads the AL with a 2.17 ERA, while Hernandez leads with a 0.94 WHIP. In terms of WAR, Sale edges out Hernandez 6.6-6.4. It’s simply too close of a race to base solely on stats, which would make Sale out to be the slight leader.
However, a huge factor in deciding postseason awards is the success of the team the candidate played for. In this case, the Mariners had one of their strongest seasons in recent memory, while the White Sox were disappointing again. With that said, I think Hernandez will get the benefit of the doubt.
AL Rookie of the Year
This was a two-man race until Masahiro Tanaka was injured and missed much of the second half. His competitor, Jose Abreu, quickly took the league by storm when he lead in home runs well into spring and early summer.
Abreu had 25 home runs by the end of June, but was batting just .279 at that time. Since, he’s raised his batting average to .316 on the year, without hitting that many home runs.
Abreu looks like a complete player already and could be in the running for MVP in the years to come. But for now, he’ll settle with this award.
NL MVP
The NL MVP race will be one talked about at length; in part because ESPN will drill it into fans heads because one of the candidates is on the Los Angeles Dodgers. The other part is because it’s Clayton Kershaw and he’s a pitcher (insert old fashioned baseball fan that hates the idea of a pitcher winning MVP).
Kershaw is up against a few offensive powers, but none strong enough to make a case to beat him. Jonathan Lucroy leads the NL in hits and WAR, but the injured Giancarlo Stanton leads in home runs and RBIS, while Andrew McCutchen leads in batting average.
This crop of players won’t have enough top top one of the best seasons in pitching history. Kershaw holds a 1.77 ERA, 0.86 WHIP and 239 strikeouts. Those are hall-of-fame numbers, much less good enough for MVP.
NL Cy Young
Did we mention Kershaw? He’s pretty good. Let’s just add to his stats a little bit.
Kershaw leads all qualified starters with 89 percents of his starts recorded as quality ones. He leads the NL with a 7.71 K/BB ratio. As not bore you, Kershaw will win this award by a landslide.
NL Rookie of the Year
Yet again we have a tight race between two competitors: Billy Hamilton and Jacob deGrom. Hamilton is a name we heard about last year and he performed up to expectations this year, but deGrom came out of seemingly nowhere to be in contention.
Hamilton looked promising most of the season, but is batting just .123 this month for the Cincinnati Reds. Sure, his 56 steals and 141 hits look nice, but he’s going cold into the offseason, which will hurt his chances.
Enter deGrom, who has pitched to a 2.63 ERA so far this season and struck out 144 batters. Those are great numbers for any pitcher, much less a rookie. He’ll take this award because he has only one loss since July 8.