Inside Baseball
It’s Pujols, then who knows for awards
The postseason is just heating up but the balloting is over for baseball’s major awards. There are some slam-dunk choices (see Pujols, Albert) and plenty of interesting discussion to be had in some of the categories. In particular, there is going to be some intense debate this year over the Cy Young Awards in both leagues.
In the interest of full disclosure, I was invited to be a voter this year for American League Manager of the Year. The Baseball Writers’ Association of America has requested we not reveal our actual votes until after the results are announced but my thoughts are included below without an indication of my actual ballot.
Here’s this corner’s look at the awards:
MVP: Pujols is certainly the lock for the National League award. Hanley Ramirez, Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder, Pablo Sandoval, Andre Ethier and Troy Tulowitzki are worthy of looks. Joe Mauer has become the pullaway choice in the American League, ahead of Mark Teixeira, Derek Jeter and Miguel Cabrera.
ALCy Young: There are plenty of arguments for Felix Hernandez, Justin Verlander, CC Sabathia and Mariano Rivera (who continues to be an ageless wonder out of the bullpen). But even though he pitched for a team that lost 97 games—and maybe because of that—I say Zack Greinke of the Royals has to be the choice.
Greinke went 16-8 with a 2.16 ERA. He struck out 242 and walked only 51 while allowing just 195 hits in 229x innings. Opponents batted only .230 against him. In five of his eight losses, the Royals scored two runs or less. He started strong (5-0, 0.50 in April) and finished strong (3-0, 0.55 in September). All while pitching for the horrendous Royals.
NLCy Young: I say Tim Lincecum( 15-7, 2.48, NL-leading 261 strikeouts). You might say Chris Carpenter (17-4, 2.24) or Adam Wainwright (19-8, 2.63) and I think we’d all be right. This one is just too close to call but I can’t imagine there’s anyone else to consider.
Rookies of the Year: Tigers pitcher Rick Porcello should be a runaway choice in the AL after winning 14 games and getting so much faith shown in him that he started Tuesday’s tiebreaker in Minnesota. White Sox 3B Gordon Beckham had a great year but wasn’t in the bigs from the start. Same thing in the NL as the pick here is Philadelphia’s J. A. Happ, although Pittsburgh’s Andrew McCutchen might have been the pick with a full season.
Managers of the Year: No question that Colorado’s Jim Tracy is the pick in the NL after taking over a team that was 18-28 and going 74-42 the rest of the way.
In the AL, you can easily make a case for Joe Girardi after leading the Yankees to 103 wins. Sure, he had the most talent but that’s not the easiest job in the world. And he didn’t have Alex Rodriguez for a month. Minnesota’s Ron Gardenhire and Seattle’s Don Wakamatsu will get some thought and the sentimental pick will be Mike Scioscia of the Angels, for leading his team to the West title while working through the death of pitcher Nick Adenhart.
Tribe in the hunt
The Indians’ managerial plans of replacing Eric Wedge include eight-to- 10 candidates whittled to three-to-five finalists. GM Mark Shapiro is starting the process this week at the team’s Arizona base and will eventually bring the finalists to Cleveland.
The lone in-house candidate is expected to be Columbus manager Torey Lovullo, the Buffalo Baseball Hall of Famer who has played and managed for the Bisons. I would not expect Lovullo to get the job, although he may get a heavy recommendation for a spot on the new big-league staff.
I’m still waiting for the Red Sox season to end and for the Indians to negotiate some compensation to Boston for pitching coach John Farrell, the former Tribe player and farm director. Lovullo would certainly land a spot on a Farrell staff.
For his part, Shapiro is getting plenty of heat in Cleveland for the Cliff Lee deal with the Phillies. All four players he acquired (pitchers Carlos Carrasco and Jason Knapp, infielder Jason Donald and catcher Lou Marson) finished the season injured. Knapp, in fact, needs major shoulder surgery after the Indians claim his condition was misdiagnosed.
Belle rings
Speaking of the Indians, former temperamental slugger Albert Belle spoke his mind about the Tribe in a cell phone call to Cleveland Plain Dealer beat writer Paul Hoynes while the Tribe was wrapping up its season last week in Boston.
“Tell [owner] Larry Dolan I won’t be interviewing for the manager’s job,” Belle told Hoynes. “How can you manage when you’ve got no players. This season isn’t the manager’s fault. They traded away all his players. You can’t win when you trade two Cy Young winners in Sabathia and Cliff Lee. Dolan is getting what he paid for.”
Belle made a reference to the Tribe’s trouble at the gate as well.
“Every time I watch a game in Cleveland, there’s nobody in the stands,” Belle said. “I said, ‘Damn, it’s worse than the old place [Municipal Stadium] where we played. What do they call that park now, Progressive Field? They should call it ‘Regressive Field.’ ”
Around the horn
• MLB sold 73.4 million tickets during the regular season, its fifth-highest total ever but a drop of 6.6 percent from last year (the decrease is actually 5.2 percent when factoring in the new capacities in New York). Nine teams went over 3 million and 10 averaged more than 35,000 per game.
The Orioles, Mariners, Reds, Pirates, Cards, Padres, Giants and Nationals all set new season lows for home attendance in their current stadiums. And the bottom fell out of attendance in the last two months in Cleveland and Toronto as well, with several announced crowds under 15,000 and in-house counts in the 5,000 range in two places that used to be full every night back in the day.
• Still nary a no-hitter for the Mets in their 48 seasons. The count is at 7,644 games and counting since their birth in 1962 after good guy ex-Bison Nelson Figueroa allowed a leadoff single to Houston’s Michael Bourne Sunday en route to his season-ending shutout.
• Umpire C. B. Bucknor’s Wikipedia page was disabled by the service for 24 hours Friday because of “vandalism.” No doubt it was the work of Red Sox fans upset by his blown calls at first base Thursday in Anaheim.
• Richmond will have a team next year after a one-year hiatus without the Braves. The Connecticut Defenders, San Francisco’s Double-A affiliate in the Eastern League, is moving there for 2010.
Franchise operators will spend about $1.5 million in improvements on The Diamond, the 24-year-old ballpark that has not worn well and was the major reason the Atlanta Braves moved to Gwinnett County, Ga., this season.
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