2018 awards thread

Weird to see so many pitchers already over 200 K and only one of them within a solid quality start of getting to 200 IP.

NL Cy still a toss-up (combined WAR):

Scherzer - 16.3
deGrom - 15.8
Nola - 14.4

Scherzer's total is a little inflated because he's having a good year with the bat; in terms of just pitching, deGrom's a little ahead.

I mentioned this piece here or on another thread: Joe Posnanski looking at the two versions of WAR via Pedro Martinez's 1999 and 2000 seasons, and basically concluding that a combination of the two works best:

http://joeposnanski.com/at-war-with-pedro/

Jaffe on behalf of Sale:

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/chris-sales-abridged-cy-young-case/

Mets bumped deGrom bcz it looked like there could be rain delays yesterday. Might rain all day today; it there's a postponement tonight, it might eventually cost him a start.

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/defense-contact-quality-and-the-nl-cy-young

A WPA argument for Goldschmidt:

http://www.mlb.com/news/paul-goldschmidt-making-strong-run-at-mvp/c-293875428

(Haven't read it yet, so I don't know if they're including pitchers in there.)

mets are indeed postponed

Being pushed back -- by rain -- from Sunday to Tuesday will probably cost Jacob deGrom a start. Possible solutions:

--an Oct. 1 makeup game, if the Mets end up with one of those
--deGrom starting on short rest for the season finale Sept. 30

— Tim Healey (@timbhealey) September 10, 2018

feels like no one's talking about it but both betts and scherzer have an outside shot at an 11 rWAR season

just this minute i can't remember what rWAR is.

it's what baseball-reference WAR was called before everyone seemed to switch to bWAR

Being pushed back -- by rain -- from Sunday to Tuesday will probably cost Jacob deGrom a start. Possible solutions:

--an Oct. 1 makeup game, if the Mets end up with one of those
--deGrom starting on short rest for the season finale Sept. 30
— Tim Healey (@timbhealey) September 10, 2018

I heard there's a double header on Wednesday now?

yes. it's a 4-game series, thru Thursday.

To bWAR or rWAR, that is the question.

Kluber wound up not doing his part tonight. Verlander is pitching extremely well though.

Eye on the prize, Kluber will skip a start:

Francona said probables for Fri-Sun will be Tomlin, Clevinger, Bieber (in that order). It pushes Kluber back in order to align him better for playoffs.

— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) September 11, 2018

DeGrom's now sporting a losing record... could be interesting for the old-timer voter.

he struck out 9 and ERA swelled to 1.71

Price is pitching so well now (never mind that it's the Jays)--I haven't looked past the obvious three or four best, but I wouldn't be surprised if he sneaks into the Top 10 for AL Cy.

Jeff Sullivan wrote that DeGrom's W-L record is so absurd that it's come full circle and is helping his Cy Young case because it's getting so much attention. If he was 14-10 people would be talking about him less.

Scherzer is going to surpass the numbers he put up in his last two Cy Young winning years, maybe by a lot.

yeah, he's exceeded his highest bWAR of 6.9 (2015) by 2.

Nola took a hit last night: loss, 4 ER in 5 IP.

WILLLLLBONNNNN

“If (deGrom) goes 8-11 and wins the Cy Young, then all the people voting for the Cy Young should be dismissed” - @RealMikeWilbon

I’m triggered pic.twitter.com/gTNYOgyDzk

— Andrew Claudio (@Claudio_GSN) September 12, 2018

NL MVP could come down to two Brewers outfielders, nice

holy pedro tho

After yesterday, Blake Snell is 5 strikeouts away from the 23rd 200/200 season in MLB history.

That's a season with 200+ Ks and an ERA+ over 200, a club that's already added Chris Sale and Jacob deGrom this year https://t.co/ZYqbRGQNG5 pic.twitter.com/f5ZYPJcZkK

— Baseball Reference (@baseball_ref) September 13, 2018

Scherzer was hammered tonight. Definitely deGrom's to lose now.

https://www.mlb.com/news/jd-martinez-should-be-american-league-mvp

After 148 games last season, the Red Sox had a record of 85-63 -- and led the Yankees by three games in the American League East. A year later, after the same number of games, the Red Sox enter Saturday's games with a record of 101-47, and stand 9 1/2 games ahead of the Yankees. There was one significant addition to the team between then and now: J.D. Martinez. He is not only the Most Valuable Player in the AL this season, he is the MVP of the entire sport.

mookie betts is a better hitter, in addition to being one of the best defenders players in the game at a premium defensive position

the triple crown is a hell of a drug

Sale's the best pitcher in the AL, no argument really, and probably the best period. But I can't see Snell not winning the Cy at this point (unless he blows up in one of his last two starts). The voting is more and more sabermetric every year, but I don't think they're quite at the point where they don't give the Cy to a guy who's 20-5 with a sub-2.00 ERA and pitching for a third-place team. You can't find anything in his line that's not excellent; his FIP is around 3.00, so I guess he's been a little lucky.

Still think Cy Young voters care about wins? In an informal poll of MLB dot com BBWAA writers, deGrom took 30 of 33 first-place votes:https://t.co/zG0ylHMyBI

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) September 19, 2018

the last couple of weeks will be interesting for the AL MVP race if trout continues the utterly ridiculous tear he’s been on.

I also think ohtani has a really solid case for ROY

Only 0.1 bWAR separating Sale and Snell. If Snell was on a 200 IP pace then he'd be the frontrunner, but he isn't. The win total is nice, but you have to be lucky to win that many with so few IP, and his FIP partly reflects that. He might set a record for the fewest IP by a 20 game winner ... I think Jared Weaver set that record a few years ago?

ohtani should run away with ROY actually now that I look at the numbers

Yeah, when I look at Snell's IP, he really isn't that far ahead of Sale, even with the injury (169-150)--I was assuming he was at least 30 or 40 innings ahead. In those extra 19 innings, Snell has given up 13 extra hits, 25 extra walks, 6 extra HR, and struck out 22 fewer batters. Hard to make a case for him. He probably will rank as one of the great runner-up seasons.

Snell is 26th overall in run support, 4.55 runs per start; Sale is actually a little higher at 4.96. (No surprise: Happ is second at 5.83.) Two pitchers are getting worse support than DeGrom's 3.53 runs per start: Andrew Cashner (hardly matters with an ERA over 5.00) and Cole Hamels.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/stats/pitching/_/sort/runSupportPerStart/type/expanded-2/order/false

for AL MVP, yeah Trout has been insane of late. In Sept: .380/.508/.680. He's a very good few games away from passing Betts in bWAR. He's already passed him in fWAR.

Ramirez has really slowed down, and Lindor was never going to gain much traction w/Ramirez as his teammate. Betts in Sept is hitting .261/.407/.348. Martinez has similarly cooled off a bit.

i can see Snell being the pick for those who like wins, but he's also not really an exciting pick; Sale should get it. I thought maybe Verlander would sneak in, but I suspect he'll finish more like #3, ahead of Kluber and Cole and whoever else.

the likely NL MVP hasn't even been mentioned in this thread yet, i don't think

(though craig edwards seems to think degrom has a chance: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/jacob-degrom-and-the-mvp-precedent/)

Yelich iirc

i actually think NL Cy is shaping up to be the one w/the winner most easy to predict at this point.

yeah, i have no doubt it'll be degrom

degrom
yelich
acuna

??? sale
betts
ohtani

i wonder about vote splitting in the AL w/Betts and Martinez, lots of people are still making noise about the latter despite Mookie having the trve kvlt MVP season. not sure it'd be enough for Trout to win but idk.

yeah, seems like there's a decent possibility of that happening for sure. it all depends on the good ol' triple crown, and martinez is close on BA and HRs now

fWAR hates snell

he's only a couple innings shy, but sale does not currently qualify for the ERA title -- have any starters ever won without qualifying?

despite degrom and his likelihood of winning in the NL, i still think that snell will be overlooked because he plays for the rays.

For NL ROY, I've gone from Soto being a lock, to Acuna overtaking him, and then Soto had a big couple of weeks and got back into it. When I look at them now, though, it still looks like Acuna.

https://www.mlb.com/mets/news/jacob-degrom-should-be-national-league-mvp/c-295265432

deGrom dominated the Nats with one run over seven innings, got the win (!) and probably locked up the Cy.

deGrom's a lock now; in what was a real close race a few weeks ago, he may even come close to winning unanimously. I can't see MVP, though.

The Triple Crown won't happen (Davis hit two HR), so I think that locks up MVP for Betts, unless you think vote-splitting will make room for Trout. Ramirez and Lindor have faded a bit in the second half; by WAR, Chapman's case is almost 40% defense, and I just can't see that in a year where Betts is such a blueprint MVP both traditionally and sabermetrically.

Betts would seem to be a virtual lock now after the last couple games, with Trout maybe possibly moving into the #2 spot at this point with his recent run.

Snell has a shot at 22 wins and is maybe locking it down as well, though he's not very inspiring as a #1 vote.

Betts has an outside chance at 11 WAR on Baseball Reference. The only two players to reach that this century were Bonds (twice) and Pedro in 2000.

And--forgot about this--he's only played 132 games. (Pro-rated, Trout's abbreviated season last year might have been in the same range.)