2021 awards thread

Jays got to Cole somewhat last night, 3 runs over 6. Ray going tonight and a halfway decent performance I think is all he needs.

not quite half way decent last night, but i think he's still the best option for the Cy this year.

Both MVPs look obvious to me and Ray should be the AL Cy winner. ROYs I’m not sure about - and NL Cy, I have no fucking idea.

Harper or Tatis?

Does the Padres' meltdown rule out Tatis? I thought most people here don't care where the team finishes...or are meltdowns a separate category?

Forgot about Soto...I don't think the NL MVP is obvious. Trea Turner leads them all in fWAR.

I felt like it was Soto going into the final weeks, but I should take a closer look.
Too busy grappling with the NL Cy right now tho. If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the study.

ok. definitely a lot closer than i thought. especially with Turner – who's up there with Soto and Harper. Tatis was better than i thought too, but I don't like him as much as the other three.
bbref liked Tatis best in terms of WAR (with Soto second) and FG is leaning Turner (with Harper and Soto close behind) – the main factor between the two being defence.
Tatis lead in HR, Harper in SLG/OPS/2B, Turner in AVG/SB/TB and Soto in OBP/BB. but of all the things these guys led the league in, Soto's OBP was the one i found easily the most impressive (.465 – better than any active player's season aside from Votto in '12 and Soto last year).
this is so close... maybe Turner playing for a playoff team tips it in his favour? maybe the collapse & turbulence moves tatis behind the other three? gee wiz

i don't think turner will finish in the top three (although he may well deserve to). and in his case being on a playoff team cuts the other way as well -- the dodgers are so loaded that he doesn't stand out quite as much. harper probably has the best case for 'carrying his team' even if they didn't quite make it

and i think tatis will be hurt by missing 32 games, and the padres' abject collapse, and probably the dugout arguments too tbh

that's a good point about the Dodgers being stacked (plus he wasn't even there for the majority of the season).

I'd vote for Harper. I have a dumb, sour-grapes reason for not voting Soto; he didn't do a whole lot those final three games. (And if, with lots of media paying attention, he had gone on a tear and helped knock the Red Sox out, I think that would have clinched the award for him.)

If you believe that a) WAR is just a rough estimate once two players are within a game of each other, and b) bWAR is as valid as fWAR, then you could make a reasonable case for Paul Goldschmidt as a somewhat sentimental pick. He'd be like Willie Stargell in 1979. Truthfully, I think he'd be the favourite if it were 1980.

Not with just 99 RBIs!

Aaaaand now that I look - Stargell win it with just 82 somehow in ‘79

trea turner seems like a perfect early 80s mvp

You're right, though, RBIs were synonymous with MVPs, and most years 99 would be a hard sell for a first baseman. (Mitigated, probably, by a low league-leading 113.)

Can you explain to me how Stargell won in 79, because I can not figure it out.

https://www.thirstyfornews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/FAMILY-99-f.jpg

otm

I guess the pirates finishing first had a bunch to do with it?

i think the fact that he looked so cool that season also helped. the '79 pirates garb is legendary. of course this is your mvp!

https://i.imgur.com/c7H6dX5.jpg

James used to say that he won for a great September that wasn't even good: .222/.328/.485.

Those hats the real mvp

Congratulations to the 2021 Fielding Bible Awards Winners!

C- Jacob Stallings
1B- Paul Goldschmidt
2B- Whit Merrifield
SS- Carlos Correa
3B- Ke'Bryan Hayes
LF- Tyler O'Neill
CF- Michael A. Taylor
RF- Aaron Judge
P- Dallas Keuchel
Multi-Pos - Kiké Hernández pic.twitter.com/FncGwh1kWF

— SIS_Baseball (@sis_baseball) October 28, 2021

i'm giving peta an award for this tweet

“Bullpen” refers to the area of a “bull’s pen” where bulls are held before they are slaughtered—it’s a word with speciesist roots & we can do better than that.

Switching to “arm barn” would be a home run for baseball fans, players, and animals 💪⚾️ pic.twitter.com/2FzSpDG9mQ

— Arm Barn (@peta) October 28, 2021

Player's Choice Awards:

https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-players-choice-awards-2021

I was going to question Posey as NL Comeback Player of the Year--had to be Wainwright, I thought; besides, Posey chose to sit out 2020--but Wainwright was actually pretty good in both 2020 and 2019.

i can't tell if they are being serious with that tweet or not.

So congrats to the St Louis Cardinals on winning the gold glove.

haha, wow! yeah.

it's something you'd only know if you watched the team every day, but in late may - july the cardinals staff were AWFUl with walks. it was unbelievable. it used to seem somewhat rare to walk the bases loaded, or to walk in a run with the bases loaded, but it seemed to be happening several times a week, for months. the twist of the knife was the defense was so good! any sort of contact would most likely result in good things, but the relievers couldn't through strikes. it was really the undoing of a season, even though their crazy streak at the end helped to obscure that mid-season damage.

too many typos to count

https://i.ibb.co/PWTMhp5/253334702-635335364498070-6195326106608665125-n.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/cONYDeB.jpg

https://www.mlb.com/news/hank-aaron-award-winners-2021

I don't know if Harper's award suggests an MVP--very different voting block.

So congrats to the Atlanta Barves on winning the silver Slugger.

Arizona and India are this years winners of the Jackie Robinson Land Mass awards

I'm sure a whole bunch of writers wanted to vote for Franco, but they couldn't justify it with the difference in games played. They knew they were voting for the markedly inferior player. (Only two third-place votes for Manoah...)

Was hoping Manoah would do better than 8th place, but they all look pretty good.

This is probably paywalled (I have a subscription), but if you have access, long Soto-vs.-Harper MVP piece by Jayson Stark.

https://theathletic.com/2961886/2021/11/17/the-bryce-harper-juan-soto-nl-mvp-debate-is-one-for-the-ages-jayson-stark-breaks-down-the-case-for-each/

Yay, Ray.

One Detroit vote away from being unanimous.

Couldn't find the vote...Cole?

Never mind, found it--Cole.

it was close but the NL got the cy young right (Burnes)

closest in NL voting history actually!

Geez, forgot all about MVPs...Ohtani and Vlad almost went 1-2 unanimously (one third for Vlad)--has that ever happened before? Another oddity, I'm guessing, is that Brandon Crawford got four first-place votes but only finished fourth (more firsts than third-place Tatis). Harper was headed for the HOF anyway, but this probably clinches it.

Posey, the (famous) catcher and team leader on a 107-win team, and having a very good season, got all of 1 point--weird.

i mean, Crawford was hands down the most valuable guy on the team.

No question, but I bet if you studied catchers having comparable seasons on comparable teams, you'd be looking at lots of MVP support--more than one 10th-place vote, for sure.

Well, maybe not. Zunino for the Rays and Will Smith for the Dodgers had comparable seasons in terms of bWAR, and their teams also won 100 games. Zunino got the same 1 point, Smith was shut out. (I suppose I'd expect more because of Posey's name recognition and stature.)

Tip O’Neill Award to Vlad--eight more and he'll tie Larry Walker (Votto has seven).

https://baseballhalloffame.ca/james-tip-oneill-award/

damn, tyler o'neill picked the wrong time to become a good canadian baseball player! you'd think he would have been a shoe-in for the T O'Neill award

The Paul O'Neill Award, of course, was given annually to the player or manager who gave the best performance in a Seinfeld episode. Beside O'Neill himself, previous winners included Keith Hernandez, Danny Tartabull, and Buck Showalter.

i never saw the buck showalter episode! i think i saw the rest, somehow, in real time on thursday night on NBC when they aired.

god, 25 years ago was very different

He's good! "All of a sudden there's a problem with Tartabull's swing..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-9ls-ugums

(Showalter's line needs context from earlier in the episode.)

I was wondering if Fergie Jenkins would have won 11 or 12 of those Tip O'Neills in a row--from '67 to '79, possibly--but he definitely would have lost to John Hiller in '73; Fergie was atypically mediocre, and Hiller had one of the greatest relief seasons ever (7.9 bWAR). Jenkins had other so-so years near the end of that run, but I don't know if there was anyone else around to beat him. Terry Puhl might have won in '79.

Rob Butler won in 1993 -- with a 97 OPS+ in 56 PA with the Blue Jays? Slow year.

I know it's early, and there are five or six strong candidates right now, but guy on this FB group posted an interesting question:

Yankees & Angels make the postseason - Aaron Judge breaks Maris' AL HR record of 61 - Shohei Ohtani hits 35/40 HR, 100 RBI - and pitching wins 13 or so games with about a 3.00 ERA - Who wins the AL MVP award??

Put the post-season bit aside...the rest sounds plausible. They'd probably also be within a game or so in WAR (Judge leads by a half-game right now).

Guessing Judge, handily, because a) Trout would take many votes from Ohtani; b) the historical novelty of Ohtani would have subsided somewhat; and c) maybe there's a feeling they still owe Judge one from 2017.

i don't want to alarm you, clem, but ohtani is about even with judge in fWAR and has blown past him in bWAR

also i'm not sure the historical novelty of a legit cy young candidate hitting 30 homers and driving in 100 runs is going to subside very soon

(he's not likely to *win* the cy because he probably won't pitch enough innings -- right now he's not even qualified -- but at the moment he's top-four in the AL in both pitcher WARs anyway)

He's really coming on, I know. I'd still put my money on Judge, though--as we know, just in general MVP voters like the novelty of voting for someone different, and Judge may have a team that wins 110 games on his side.

Another oddity that I think will benefit Judge. The Yankees are where they are primarily because of across-the-board starting-pitching depth: all five guys are having good seasons, thought I doubt any one stands out enough to garner MVP support (maybe Cortes). Offensively, Judge dominates the lineup--I can't see another everyday player right now who would take votes away from him. Depending how the rest of the year goes, he could very well be the highest Yankee listed on every single ballot, which if they win 105-110 games, would probably mostly mean firsts with a few seconds mixed in.