2020 awards thread

Betts looks like a good MVP bet too.

Ya, that is how it works these days. And I usually dont get into the whole armchair managing act myself, but a lot of the stuff Montoyo does makes no sense to me (fucking sitting Gurriel today for example). I think they’ve been winning despite Montoyo.

MOY is a dumb award 99% of the time

Ya. Maybe like 3/4 of the time it goes to the lump of flesh managing the best collection players.

it's a dumb award for sure, but it doesn't generally go to the guys managing the biggest payrolls/best players

anyway fuck you i love charlie montoyo and you're gonna have to do better than 'gurriel got a day off' to slander him in my eyes

comeback player: wil myers?

i don't have a better candidate, but was myers ever "there" to come back from?

it's a tough one! he used to be decent every other year, then he signed for way too much with the padres and sucked, and now he's slugging .600+ in a month of action. anyway he's now out for three weeks with a broken finger, so i have no clue

'there' is always hard

hosmer would've been a good one before he got hurt

i don't know how these awards work but jason heyward currently has career high avg, obp, slg, and ops

oops, i meant hosmer when i wrote wil myers. which is why several of my posts make less sense than usual

hosmer makes more sense, i think, although for it seems like he's in contention for the comeback award every other year.

heyward's a good suggestion too! his hitting made it back to league average last year, and he seems to be crushing it this year

Isn't Darvish the obvious Comeback Player of the Year? Or would winning the CY rule that out?

he really made his comeback between the first and second halves of last season

He did have a good second half...Not sure if the voters look at splits, though; I think I'd be inclined to vote for him.

he was worth 3.5 bWAR/2.6 fWAR and had a 108 ERA+ in 2019. too good

hosmer, otoh, was legitimately below replacement level last year

Yeah--even looked at without splits, that's too much value for the award.

NL MVP tatis.

oddly, he might not even be the best offensive (or defensive!) SS on his team.

events have taken a hand

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-national-league-mvp-race-is-wide-open

wonder if tatis will lose out bc he's young enough to have plenty more chances to win it moving forward

They list the "best player on the best team" rationale for Betts, but they don't mention the "best player on the surprise team" rationale for Tatis.

you're the guy who likes players to 'finish strong' tho

we only have so many tropes to select from

I'd be inclined to vote for Betts myself--just mentioning what seems like an obvious (and parallel) argument to the one they mentioned for Betts.

And honestly, I'd probably loosen up on the finishing-strong idea (which I do believe in) in a thumbnail season like this one. You've got to start your strong finish about three days into the season.

always be finishing

he still shouldn't beat cronenworth, but devin williams has some bonkers numbers: 25 IP, 1 ER, 6 H, 52 K, 0.35 ERA, 1270 ERA+

read about him on Fangraphs this week; was unaware

Was looking at Corey Seager...I've been thinking Betts for a while, but I'm puzzled as to why Betts has the slightly higher offensive bWAR.

Seager: 14 HR, .321/.374/.611, 164 OPS+, 2.3 oWAR
Betts: 16 HR, .301/.372/.587, 157 OPS+, 2.4 oWAR

They're on the same team, so no park considerations, just positional, and I thought a SS has an edge over a RF there. Betts has 20 more PA. I don't get it.

i suspect that's just the 20 more PA -- can't think of any other reason

unfortunate that juan soto missed a dozen games -- he leads the majors in OBP/SLG/OPS and is only two points behind freddie for the NL batting title

Does bWAR (or oWAR, I guess) take baserunning into consideration?

Sometimes I wish b-r and fangraphs would both put infographics explaining what their WAR takes into account on every stats page

That could just be their logos

unfortunate that juan soto missed a dozen games

― mookieproof, Wednesday, September 23, 2020 1:17 PM (one hour ago)

due to a false positive too which hurts even more.

fangraphs now has darvish (69 IP), degrom (63 IP) and corbin burnes (56 IP) tied with 2.6 fWAR. bauer (65 IP) and max fried (55 IP) have the ERAs to join them, but not the FIPs . . . although fried is 7-0 and hasn't allowed a homer(!)

degrom leads in strikeouts and has been better than he was when he won last year. i don't know if the chance to make it three in a row helps or hurts him, though i'd guess the latter.

assuming they all pitch relatively well in their final starts, i'm not sure how one differentiates them. burnes' and fried's fewer innings will probably hurt, but of course in theory they've generated just as much value.

xp yeah soto's about to go on a pujols-like run where he's such a good hitter that his defense barely even matters

Does bWAR (or oWAR, I guess) take baserunning into consideration

Clear edge to Betts there, but I just assumed baserunning was part of the calculation for oWAR--offense is run scoring, and it's part of that. (SB/CS, at least; not sure if bases gained/lost on the basepaths figure in.)

James always had two versions of RC, the SB version and non-SB version, based on a different number of outs. Actually, there were three:

per 25.5 outs: the basic version
per 26.0 outs: SB/CS added
per 27.0 outs: sacrifices, HBP, everything else added

if you hover your cursor over "oWAR" on anyone's bbref page it'll pop up a window that shows you everything that goes into it

also

although fried is 7-0 and hasn't allowed a homer(!)

welp!

Are there any other cases of a reigning healthy MVP betting 7th for most of the season?

Pete Rose 1974?

lol, thanks auto-correct

big game from bauer last night

I honestly did not think he had another big season in him

another comeback candidate: salvador perez

His 177 wRC+ would be the 2nd best by an #MLB catcher since 2000, trailing only Mike Napoli's 179 in 2011 with Texas.

He's done that in just 140 PAs, missed the first 10 days of Spring 2.0 due to Covid, spent 24 days on the IL due to an eye injury, and coming off TJ surgery.

— Nate Rowan (@njrowan) September 24, 2020

Soto overtook Freeman in BA which makes him MLB leader in all three slashes.

still trails lemahieu. but yeah

whoops, NL then

we have the triple crown for AVG(so-so stat)/RBI(less useful stat)/HR(we all love dingers) – is there a term for AVG/OPB/SLG?

yep, slash triple crown

isnt it common knowledge that Bauer has been throwing doctored pitches all year?

All of Devin Williams's Swing/Miss or Called Strikes on his Changeup from this season (so far).

Pitching Porn.
👇https://t.co/kpi4F8TRud

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 23, 2020

Well now I’m trying to guess who the four Padres are.

trevor hoffman, andy benes and tony gwynn iirc

where have you gone, Randy Jones

surely one for Trevor Hoffman

wrong on Hoffman but I correctly remembered the late-career HOFer who won one with SD (first of two seasons there)

Phil Niekro should've won that year, only time he led the league's pitchers in WAR*

*Awards blow

it's okay -- the mets have a no-hitter and the padres don't

i also guessed hoffman, benes, and gwynn.

Mario Soto or Jose Rijo possibly should have won a CY--they had some great years, though I'd have to check how the timing went.

Probably behind a paywall, but Jayson Stark's picks:

http://theathletic.com/2090616/2020/09/25/stark-handing-out-my-2020-awards-from-cy-young-to-cy-yuk-mvp-to-lvp/

(Abreu and Freeman, Bieber and Bauer.)

I read that awful underrated/overrated book of his, so not particularly a fan.

Rijo led Maddux p comfortably in WAR in '93.

Yeah, I looked it up...There was a good argument to be made for Soto in '82 or '83, but it wasn't clear-cut either year (he slightly trailed Rogers in '82 and Denny in '83 in bWAR; Denny won, Rogers finished second).

on the other side of that, fWAR puts soto 8th for '83, behind:

Steve Carlton	7.4
John Denny	5.8
Rick Rhoden	5.0
Steve Rogers	4.9
Jerry Reuss	4.8
Atlee Hammaker	4.6
John Candelaria	4.5
Mario Soto	4.5
Larry McWilliams	4.3
Fernando Valenzuela	4.2

poor steve carlton

Poor Atlee Hammaker! (Seven earned runs in 0.2 innings at that year's AS Game.)

truly, poor atlee hammaker. i have to admit that i didn't even recognize his name!

look at all those pirates

in the last 25 years, exactly two pirate pitchers have topped larry mcwilliams' 4.3 fWAR in a season -- gerrit cole in 2015 (5.1) and oliver perez in 2004 (4.5)

well, i think degrom is now out of the NL cy equation : /

Jake Peavy! I'm also guessing Gaylord Perry, which is probably a longshot because he played for so many teams.

Yup. Those are the easy ones.

I see now that I'm a day late on this trivia question and they everyone has looked up the answer by now ... carry on.

I assume Brandon Lowe will be Top 5 in AL MVP?

Using the ILB fantasy league categories as guidelines:

NL MVP: Freeman
AL MVP: JRamirez
NL CY: Darvish
AL CY: Bieber
NL ROY: Dustin May
AL ROY: Kyle Lewis (barely edging Luis Robert & Cristian Javier)

Name them after Frank Robinson, the only player to win in both leagues. https://t.co/Nwa9syw0wJ

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) October 2, 2020

The awards will be nameless in 2020.

honestly, this is the first time i learned they had a name!

i didnt know til this year. Mike Schmidt got some ink for pushing for the change.

Another well deserved award for @ncboomstick23!

Nelson Cruz has been named the 2020 Marvin Miller Man of the Year, an award voted on by his peers as the player they "most respect based on his leadership on the field and in the community." Congrats Nellie! #MNTwins pic.twitter.com/WALetzuOyK

— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) October 22, 2020

I don't think you can say for sure whether Cruz will be mostly remembered for the eight home runs or the play in game 6 until some time passes.
― clemenza, Saturday, October 29, 2011 12:07 PM

Seeing as nobody's blaming him *now* for blowing the game, it's safe to say that he won't be remembered for it...Let's agree to revive the thread in five years and discuss it then.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Saturday, October 29, 2011 2:48 PM (Two different posts joined together)

We have a date. Between two days of perspective and five years, I'll go for the five years.
― clemenza, Saturday, October 29, 2011 5:12 PM

Nine years later: NoTime was right, I was wrong.

Funny how you revived this the day before a more memorable all-time defensive screw up in the WS.

I wonder if there was even one baseball fan, in 2011, who thought that Cruz (31 at the time) would go on to hit 300+ HR.

When he hit free agency, the consensus was you'd be crazy to give him a multi-year deal and overpay for 25-30 HR/year (with a .300 OBP and bad defense, assuming that his skills didn't fall off a cliff in his mid-30's). And somehow he ended up on the shortlist of the greatest 40-year old hitters ever.

Holy shxx the Rays won game 4? I figured it was done and turned it off.

How could you turn off a back and forth game like that?!

Liam Hendricks wins Reliever of the Year

1.4 fWAR (2nd in MLB RPs to Devin Williams)
1.1 bWAR (2nd in MLB RPs to his teammate Jake Diekman*)

*Diekman's fWAR is 0.5, earning him 49th place of all MLP RPs... which is why I'm always fascinated to compare these two sites.

1.4 fWAR (2nd in MLB RPs to Devin Williams)

Williams takes NL ROY

Lewis unanimous in the AL.

god bless devin williams but ffs he threw 27 innings

Did he ever.

yeah it was the one bright spot of our season come on

he was the one bright spot of 5% of your season

yeah that's right

AL MVP: Abreu!

Anyone predict that? Clemenza? Morbs?

Seems like a pretty good vote. Freeman surprised me--I thought it'd be Betts or Tatis.

One man’s mistake is another man’s claim to an NL MVP vote. Thanks Rick! Honored by the vote. 😂 https://t.co/wsqJpbHpcN

— Ryan Tepera (@RTepera) November 13, 2020

SK Wyverns 1B Jamie Romak wins the 2020 Tip O'Neill Award, given annually to a Canadian baseball player who is "judged to have excelled in individual achievement and team contribution while adhering to the highest ideals of the game of baseball."

first non-MLB player since 1991

a 35 year old dude playing in the KBO, who hit 32 home runs and a .946 OPS. kind of a neat choice!