2022 Awardsatron

I can see a result where Ohtani finishes second.

The NL is Alcantara/Nola/Fried/Wright, I think in that order.

NL MVP is gonna maybe be a weird one. the two covid vaccine "skeptics" on the cardinals, goldschmidt and arenado, are more or less tied on WAR on both fangraphs and baseball reference. machado ends up just ahead of the both of them, on fangraphs, but is about 1.0 behind on bWAR. all three are on playoff teams. goldschmidt's value came from his hitting, which was 77% better than average (177 wRC+), by far the best in the NL. Arenado was the 4th best hitter in the NL (151 wRC+) and one of the best defenders in baseball. it's always surprising to remember that arenado is slow as fuck and gives away runs on the bases. his range isn't wonderful at 3B but he is a vacuum cleaner if it's hit anywhere near him. he'll probably get the gold glove even though ke'bryan hayes probably out performed him this year. and then you have machado, who splits the difference between arenado and goldschmidt - offense like arenado*, defense a plus but not like arenado, and provides plus baserunning value (like goldschmidt).

i think goldschmidt will get it. despite his relatively tepid September, there is no denying how consistently amazing he was from late April through late August

*Arenado and Machado's batting lines are extremely similar this year.

Arenado: .293/.358/.533, 30 HR, 103 RBI, 151 wRC+
Machado: .298/.366/.531, 32 HR, 102 RBI, 152 wRC+

also, this is impossible to prove and very anecdotal, but "take it from me"

Goldschmidt's Defensive value was apparently very bad this year, by the metrics. On both fangraphs and baseball reference, he gets docked severely. on Fangraphs his DEF value was -15.8, compared to the +12.9 of Arenado. that's what equalizes them in fWAR, at least.

i will say this -- i watched nearly every cardinals game this year, and i noticed early on, in late April, that somehow Goldschmidt's DEF was already at like -8.0 or so, just catastrophically bad for that early in the season. and i had no idea why, having watched all of those games. it was very, very, strange. and then, the rest of the season, he accumulated another -8.0, but it was spread out over several months instead of one bad month. so anyway, i don't know, but having watched him play all year i don't think of him as a defensive liability at all. arenado does a wonderful job sucking up all the baseballs and throwing them over to first. but there are plenty of times when it's goldschmidt who has to do something borderline-exceptional to complete the play. it's happened so many times.

defensive metrics are always kind of weird but this is one case where i think goldschmidt got docked too much for supposed subpar defensive performance. that's why i think goldschmidt that has the advantage in the MVP - his only statistical weakness this year hasn't really appeared to be the case irl and was not noticeably bad.

Interestingly (maybe only to me), I think Pauly G and Nolan both locked down their HOF resumes this season. I don’t see much in the way of vote splitting, I figure the lions share of voters will go Goldy/Arenado/Machado, in that order.

I don’t see much in the way of vote splitting, I figure the lions share of voters will go Goldy/Arenado/Machado, in that order.

yeah, i agree. i could see some voters going arenado/goldschmidt/machado, but few putting machado between the two

I think Pauly G and Nolan both locked down their HOF resumes this season.

it'll be interesting to see how they do in the playoffs. this year, next year, and 2024 - the cardinals have a good chance of making the playoffs in each year, hopefully at least to a division championship for one of them.

Top 3 in the AL I’m thinking Judge obv, Ohtani…Alvarez? Ramirez? Verlander??

I figure it’s got to be Goldie for NL mvp and the order above sounds right after him.
Alcantra makes the most sense for NL Cy.
AL mvp will be judge then Ohtani then I dunno.
Rookies of the year will be Rodriguez and Strider (what a fucking debut from that guy - I hadn’t even heard of him before august)

I started this a couple of months ago, Thermo:

2022 Awards Thread

I'll move the comments (mostly me!) over here and the other one can be locked.

https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/shohei-and-the-judge?r=1jtu0&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
― clemenza, Wednesday, September 7, 2022 7:16 PM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

The second comment is pretty interesting; makes a good case that the Angels might do better to just let Ohtani pitch when he's pitching, and not bat him on those days.
― clemenza, Wednesday, September 7, 2022 7:21 PM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

clemenza otm i guess! (click for story)

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/34525318/mlb-september-predictions-playoff-races-mvp-cy-young-awards-more-surprises
― mookieproof, Wednesday, September 7, 2022 7:51 PM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

Verlander looks pretty safe for the AL Cy Young, but the two WAR leaderboards suggest 2 through 5 still up in the air. These are the guys who show up on both Top 10s and their average between the two:

Verlander - 5.30
Cease - 5.25
Ohtani - 5.20
Manoah - 4.85
Perez - 4.25
Bieber - 4.20
McClanahan - 3.90

Manoah was great yesterday--think he still has a chance to finish second.
― clemenza, Sunday, September 25, 2022 12:41 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

is the NL ROY Michael Harris III, or Spencer Strider?

Strider's FIP is 1.83!
― Karl Malone, Sunday, September 25, 2022 12:53 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

NL Cy Young?

If you care about playoffs and who led the team there, I guess it's Aaron Nola of the Phillies? He would be unthinkable in the old days, going 10-13 with a 3.36ERA. but he's thrown 198 innings so far, and his FIP and xFIP (2.66; 2.81) suggest better.

Carolos Rodon is striking out more per 9 (11.88) than any other pitcher in the NL. He's 13-8, 2.98 ERA and a very nice 2.34 FIP. But he plays for the giants.

Sandy Alcantara is the only pitcher to reach 200 IP in either league, by some distance. He's at 220 IP, with a 2.32 ERA, and 14-8 for the Marlins. (I think he should win?)

then there's Max Fried, of the Braves of course, 13-7, 2.50 ERA, 180 IP
― Karl Malone, Thursday, September 29, 2022 9:48 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Maybe Fried is the guy, if you value both playoff contention and performance
― Karl Malone, Thursday, September 29, 2022 9:48 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

The ROY question is a tough one, but I think it'll be Strider--fastest ever to 200 strikeouts I heard today.
― clemenza, Thursday, September 29, 2022 10:01 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

alcantara for cy imo

that said, god bless rodon (and judge) for betting on themselves and winning

also i saw somewhere that the barves' *rookies* have accumulated more WAR this season than like three whole teams? i hate to see it, but that is impressive as hell
― mookieproof, Thursday, September 29, 2022 10:26 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Goldschmidt and Arenado have both slumped in September; if they split votes, I wonder if Machado can take MVP. Throw in Freeman and Betts, and I suspect it will be a very close vote.
― clemenza, Sunday, October 2, 2022 8:20 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

If Rutschman hadn't been injured and missed the first six weeks of the season this would be a hell of an AL ROY decision.

Sorry bout that Clems!

Biased, but I think Manoah has a shot at second (and no worse than third).

I think Pujols probably helped provide some cover for poor Septembers from both Goldschmidt and Arenado. So I suppose it will still be one of them, probably Goldschmidt. If Machado ever won, I'd be fine with that (taking Tatis's meltdown and Soto's post-trade struggles into account).

what the fuck I completely missed Justin Verlander having a season like that

gold glove finalists announced (including the new award for utility players): https://www.mlb.com/news/2022-gold-glove-awards-finalists

i was very surprised to see goldschmidt as a finalist at 1B. i think that cements his MVP. the only knock on his stats this year was negative defensive value. by old and new defensive metrics, he was one of least effective first basemen in the league, and that's why his WAR was dragged down to near Machado and Arenado. Now, all that needs to be said is "he was the best hitter in the league and a gold glove finalist as well", no matter how specious that may be

Awards week...Three are pretty obvious: Judge, Verlander, Alcantra. I thought Machado might outflank Goldschmidt and Arenado, but reading around, it seems that Goldschmidt is still the clear favourite. For ROYs, I'll go with J-Rod and Strider.

agree across the board.

Wow. Harris won it for NL ROY!!

v. intersting

New CBA rules impacting AL ROY award: Seattle earns an extra draft pick after the first round because J-Rod was a top 100 prospect on the Opening Day roster.

Adley Rutschman earns a year of service time for finishing 2nd despite coming up in May

Both earn $$ from pre arb pool

— Jesse Rogers (@JesseRogersESPN) November 14, 2022

I had no idea about any of that until I was reading about Harris. I feel like the extra draft pic might be overkill, but I guess the service time thing is good?

From Posnanski's column yesterday, on revamping the awards: "One award we’d DEFINITELY add is the Shohei Ohtani Award, or simply the Shohei. This would go to the best pitcher/hitter combination in baseball, and it would go to Shohei Ohtani every year. He’d be the only nominee. And we’d like for him to come up each year and say, “Oh, wow, I wasn’t expecting this. I didn’t prepare anything."

(I think he's maybe stopped putting share links.)

Brandon Hyde was robbed of AL Manager of the Year

i enjoyed dan szymborski's column on how he chose between harris and strider for NL ROY (seems like he saw them as essentially tied but gave strider the edge for the added difficulty of changing position from a reliever to a starter during the season)

it would be mad for morale and cause a lot of arguments, but i'd like to see the worst manager of the year award

Tiny bit of surprise at Verlander's unanimity--thought he might get dinged by one or two voters for missed time. First time since Gibson/McLain both winners were unanimous.

alcantara won unanimously as well, first cy young for a marlin. made me think of Jose Fernandez, who would have turned 30 this year

Wow. Fernandez feels forever ago

Probably not much doubt anyway, but Goldschmidt would have to fall of a cliff not to make the HOF now.