Best Month of the Year (And MLB Awards)

Today is the first Monday of October. With all due apologies to March Madness, October marks the beginning of best month on the sports calendar. Baseball has moved on to the postseason, the NFL is in full gear, conference play is beginning in college football, the NHL kicks off this week, the NBA isn’t too far behind and we even got the added bonus of a tremendous Ryder Cup which wrapped up this morning. All of our country’s most attractive sports are or will be playing meaningful games this time of the year. It’s enough to make the die-hard sports fan go crazy, or for the sports-bloggers out there a time for your typing fingers to get sore. We’ll kick off an action-filled week by handing out some awards in Major League Baseball before transitioning ahead to a look at the postseason tomorrow.

(Be sure to check back often this week as I plan to have a ton of content up on the blog. In addition to the baseball posts, I plan on including a Penguins preview, college football smorgasbord, Pirates recap/look forward and of course my weekly NFL picks and column. Thank goodness the Steelers have a bye this week!)

Major League Baseball wrapped up its regular season yesterday with the National League West and wild card still to be decided. If you are like most of the country and tune out baseball once football season starts, at least until the playoffs begin, than I can’t blame you. After about 130-plus games, even the most hard-core baseball junkies are ready for the postseason and the intense pressures of October to start.

This year did come with a little drama in the final few weeks but if you are from cities outside of San Francisco, San Diego, Denver or Atlanta you were probably more worried about your fantasy football teams for the last month or so than the baseball season. Fear not, however, as I give you my regular season awards and postseason preview over the next two days which should get you caught up just in time for the playoffs to begin on Wednesday.

AL MVP
Josh Hamilton (Texas Rangers) – This one would have been as clear-cut as it gets if Hamilton hadn’t missed 30 games this year, but the production he provided in the games he played for the AL West winning Rangers was still enough in my book. Hamilton won the AL batting crown with .359 average, hit 32 HRs drove in 100 runs and scored 95. “The Natural”, as a friend and I dubbed him a few years back, also led the AL in OPS at 1.043 and plays a decent outfield, including 40 games in center. Honorable Mention: Miguel Cabrera, Robinson Cano.

NL MVP
Joey Votto (Cincinnati Reds) – The NL MVP was a virtual coin flip between Votto and Albert Pujols, with the easy tie-breaker going to Votto whose Reds beat out Pujols’ Cardinals for the Central Division. Votto’s line of .324/.424./.600 and 37/113/106 look almost identical to Albert’s .312/.414/.596 and 42/118/115, especially considering the extra few days Votto took off down the stretch getting rest for the postseason. Honorable Mention: Pujols, Carlos Gonzalez, Troy Tulowitzki.

AL Cy Young
Felix Hernandez (Seattle Mariners) – For the out of touch baseball purists out there, save me the argument that King Felix shouldn’t win because he only won 13 games. Hernandez led the AL in innings, ERA, was 2nd in strikeouts and was quite clearly the best pitcher in a stacked class of American League pitchers. In Hernandez’ 12 losses, the Mariners scored a combined 14 runs. He may have won 25 games pitching for the Yankees or Rays. Honorable Mention: Cliff Lee, David Price, CC Sabathia, Francisco Liriano.

NL Cy Young
Roy Halladay (Philadelphia Phillies) – To me, both leagues had pretty easy choices for their respective Cy Young Awards. Halladay was everything the Phillies were hoping for when trading for him this offseason and maybe even then some. Halladay led the NL in wins, innings pitched, complete games, K/BB ratio, and was 2nd in strikeouts and 3rd in ERA. He did all of this in Philadelphia’s hitter friendly park and the NL’s toughest division. There really are not words to describe how darn good Halladay performed this year. Honorable Mention: Adam Wainwright, Ubaldo Jimenez, Tim Lincecum.

AL Rookie of the Year
Neftali Feliz (Texas Rangers) – I struggled mightily with this one trying to compare Austin Jackson’s bulk stats against Feliz’ limited role as the Rangers’ closer. Jackson played every day, amassing nearly 670 plate appearances and producing a solid, if not spectacular line of .293/.345/.400. In the end, however, I decided to go with Feliz’ dominance, especially adding in the factor that Feliz may become a great pitcher going forward where Jackson is likely to stay a similar player, or even regress. Honorable Mention: Jackson, Brian Matusz.

NL Rookie of the Year
Jason Heyward (Atlanta Braves) – It is a shame that we cannot just give away two National League awards and take away the AL ROY. Heyward and Buster Posey of the Giants are both more than deserving of the award, as are about five or six other qualified candidates. I gave the slight edge to Heyward, however, as he played just a bit more than Posey while finishing with very similar production. Honorable Mention: Posey, Starlin Castro, Jaime Garcia, Mike Stanton.