2019 Awards Thread

i think Trout wins, it's similar to clem's Verlander/Cole argument that Bregman didn't necessarily do anything absurd to set himself apart from Trout. I think it'll be somewhat close, though maybe he suffers from being on the same team as a couple of HOF starting pitchers and a guy who seems on the road to being one, not to mention some other MVP-caliber batters.

I think Verlander edges out Cole but it'll be maybe even closer than the MVP race.

DeGrom and Bellinger seem like total locks in the NL.

is Bellinger really that amazing a fielder to boost his WAR so much? Yelich has Cody (and the rest of the NL) handily beat in AVG, OBP, SLG and OPS+, way more SB and only trails him by 3 home runs. this would look like an easy choice for Yelich, until you hit WAR.

I saw him make a helluva throw/assist vs Mets.

I think you may be forgetting that Dodger Stadium is a "pitcher's park" (still, I think).

This is very hard for me to type, because I know it is a controversial metric that will get a lot of blowback on here, but the ILB Fantasy League rates Yellich's 2019 > Bellinger's.

For direct comparison between player seasons, raw counting stats (and basic rate stats) aren't helpful. Gotta keep those Rockies hitters away from the hardware.

I didn’t realize how big the bref war gap was between Yelich and Bellinger.

ah - park factor was something i hadn't considered. tho, doesn't OPS+ account fo that, or am I mistaken?

It does.

High school counsellor voice*

There are no wrong answers

... or they are *all* wrong!

my calculations find that greg garcia is once again the MLB leader in WAR, once adjusting for team-playerness and grit

some discussion here of defense in comparing trout and bregman (none of it definitive, of course)

(Given how well we can measure defense, Mike Trout’s 0.1 WAR lead over Alex Bregman is not large enough to be the foundation of an argument to give Trout the MVP over Bregman.)

— Eno Sarris (@enosarris) October 1, 2019

I **love** how Eno confuses "well" with "poorly" in his first tweet.

Top NL outfielders by defensive Win Shares:

Victor Robles - 4.9
Lorenzo Cain - 4.3
Cody Bellinger - 4.3
Harrison Bader - 4.0
Kike Hernandez - 4.0
Kevin Pillar - 3.9
Ronald Acuna - 3.8
Harold Ramirez - 3.7

Yelich is 2.4. You have to divide Win Shares by three, so the difference between Bellinger and Yelich (1.6) is basically a half Win Share.

Strike Hernandez from that - he earned a lot of his playing second base this year

is Bellinger really that amazing a fielder to boost his WAR so much? Yelich has Cody (and the rest of the NL) handily beat in AVG, OBP, SLG and OPS+, way more SB and only trails him by 3 home runs. this would look like an easy choice for Yelich, until you hit WAR.

― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, October 1, 2019 12:55 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

he’s a freak athlete, the guy plays first base and also plays a great centerfield, it’s p nuts

I thought that was only a thing in OOTP baseball! Obviously I need to watch a few dodger playoff games

Players selected Gerrit Cole, Lucas Giolito and Justin Verlander as finalists in the American League and Hyun-Jin Ryu, Mike Soroka and Jacob deGrom in the National League in voting for Outstanding Pitcher honors in the 2019 Players Choice Awards.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) October 16, 2019

maxless

not necessarily surprised at no Max, but somewhat surprised that Strasburg or Flaherty didn't wind up in his spot.

how do we justify Soroka over Strasburg and Max?

MLB jocks

they aint too smaaaaaht

giolito and soroka seem like 'good narrative' picks, although they could also have gone with minor or lance lynn

I didn't know Tom Tango had a formula to predict Cy Young winners: (IP/2 - ER) + SO/10 + W. Couldn't be simpler. Even there, still a toss-up, but he does give Cole a slight edge.

Cole -- 99.8
Verlander -- 98.5

Do you mean subtract the walks?

I cut-and-paste that from Tango's site...you would think so, yeah.

Wait a minute: W = wins. As Tango says, he's trying to predict the winner, not determine who deserves the award, and by his estimation, wins still carry a little weight--about 10% of the total in his formula. Here's what led me to the formula:

http://www.billjamesonline.com/youll_ryu_the_day/

One of the things I like about the formula is that, although it doesn’t weigh wins as heavily as other formulas ( which certainly reflects the trend in voter preferences), it doesn’t entirely dismiss them either. It recognizes that wins still carry some weight with some of the voters, and can help sway some votes if pitchers are close in other regards. I think that’s reasonable – clearly wins don’t mean as much as they used to in winning the Cy Young Award, but they do still mean something. deGrom was able to win the award in 2018 despite a modest win total because his ERA was light years better than everyone else’s, but if it was closer, you can bet that his lack of wins would likely have become a bigger factor.

i'm sure noted hockey fan tom tango is just having fun with stats but we could also . . . just wait for the results

On Monday, MLB announced the six candidates for AL and NL Comeback Player of the Year. The list includes Lucas Giolito, Hunter Pence and Jorge Soler in the AL and Josh Donaldson, Sonny Gray and Hyun-Jin Ryu in the NL.

i'll take giolito and gray

don't you have to have arrived in order to come back? i'd disqualify giolito and soler on those grounds, so it would be pence in the AL.

Pence's story has some teeth, finally coming home after all these years and having an incredible first half. He sort of checked out in the 2nd half but made a big enough dent for the BBWAA to recognize.

Players selected Rafael Devers, Alex Bregman and Mike Trout as finalists in the American League and Christian Yelich, Cody Bellinger and Anthony Rendon in the National League in voting for Outstanding Player honors in the 2019 Players Choice Awards.

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) October 17, 2019

Pretty much 6/6 if pitchers are excluded...I suppose there might be another choice as valid as Devers.

Marcus Semien

Forgot about him--a better choice.

mike trout and christian yelich have won the 2019 hank aaron awards as Most Outstanding Offensive Performer in their leagues

carlos carrasco = roberto clemente award

racist josh header, abuser aroldis chapman named relievers of the year

Is he still a racist ?

is he still an abuser ?

It was funny to see these two get honoured during the WS, seeing as both Washington and Houston reached the WS because of their respective screw-ups.

Xp I don’t know, I live with the certainly naive hope that people can grow out of racist ideology. Abuse I don’t see it the same way.

fielding bible awards: http://fieldingbible.com/complete-votetally.asp

What’s with Joe voting Cain the 7th best CF? Come on, Joe

James: "74% of you think that Trout SHOULD win the MVP, 53% think that he will. FWIW, I'd probably vote for Semien. I think that the argument that Trout should win because he is the best player in baseball is a legitimate argument, but that there are other approaches which are also valid."

Bregman, Trout, and Semien are only separated by 0.3 in bWAR, but that's still an odd choice that could use some explanation.

depends on one's assessment of their defensive values, it would seem

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EIyG74rVAAE2Usa?format=png&name=small

the astros were an average defensive team, weird

Cy Young winners through the prism of analytics:

http://www.billjamesonline.com/back_to_the_future_part_4/

When I was new here, I had an epic argument with SF Alex over the '73 AL Cy Young (short version: I said there was at least a case for Palmer, Alex said open-and-shut for Blyleven). Daniel Marks says neither.

Actually, through the prism of Tom Tango's CY formula.