As the season begins to wind down, all sorts of guesses as to who will win the MVP and Cy Young awards. So many factors are taken into consideration including team record, individual statistics, and how the player has been performing as of late. Inside this article, I make some predictions for who will be the winner of each American League award as the season concludes.
MVP Award
Early on I thought the award would go to Houston Astros second basemen, Jose Altuve. He was on a tear the first couple of months. However, as the season progressed, Altuve has cooled off, and the award has become a tossup. The award now belongs to one of three people; either, Josh Donaldson, Mookie Betts, or Mike Trout.*
*The Angels are not contending for the playoffs, which for better or worse, eliminates Trout from the close race.
Betts has been a true five-category player, hitting 31 home runs, a .318 average, 25 stolen bases, and triple digit rbi’s and runs. Despite Donaldson displaying more power, Betts gets the nod for his substantial lead in stolen bases and batting average (RBI’s are hard for me to argue as it is dependent on people getting on in front of you.) The Red Sox moving to first in the division with a five-game lead on the Blue Jays is just the icing on the cake for Betts getting the MVP award.
Cy Young
The Cy Young Award is always tough to predict because people all the pitching stats differently. Rick Porcello leads the American League in wins but has 50 less strikeouts than Corey Kluber. Masahiro Tanaka has the lowest ERA in the AL, but has only amassed 14 wins. Justin Verlander accumulated a 5.5 WAR and a 1.01 WHIP in a career rebounding season but his team is currently on the outside looking in for the wild card.
In the end, I think Corey Kluber is most deserving of the award. He had a rough first couple of starts to the season, but once he settled in, produced strong numbers for the rest of the season for the Cleveland Indians. Kluber leads the American League with 224 Ks, the Indians are on top of the Central Division and is third and fourth respectively in ERA and WHIP (walks + hits per innings pitched). 18 wins, though dependent on the team, would rank him third in the AL and leads all AL pitchers in WAR. All these numbers, coupled with the Indians making the playoffs should be all the voters need to pick Kluber for the Cy Young.
Rookie of the Year
After the first month of the season, the award would have gone to Nomar Mazara. The MLB season is long, though, and a lot has changed. Mazara slumped, and Michael Fulmer started to rise to on the board. Fulmer has produced at an elite level for the Tigers, with a 3.03 ERA. Fulmer had the award locked up, well, until September rolled around and teams started calling up young prospects. Controversial, but the award belongs to Gary Sanchez.
Gary Sanchez is sitting at forty-three games on the season but has hit 19 home runs and is producing a .337 batting average. He has spent half of those games at the catcher spot, a position usually devoid of strong hitters. His WAR is already 2.2 (an average an MLB starter will accumulate 2-3 over the whole season) and it is not crazy to think that even if Sanchez started slumping, he could have produced a WAR hovering near five, which would be top 20 in the American League. The only thing holding back Sanchez is his lack of playing time, but I think the production over a month and a half is more than enough for Sanchez to usurp Fulmer by season’s end.
Mariano Rivera/Rolaids Relief Award
This award is probably the easiest to decide as there is one closer who has been heads and shoulders above the rest of the American League. Zach Britton not only leads the American League in saves, but his WHIP and ERA are both below one. Britton has only given up four earned runs all season in 61 innings, meaning every 15 appearances he makes, he gives up one lone run. To put this in perspective, Mariano Rivera’s lowest ERA in a single season was 1.38 (He gave up 12 ER’s in 78 innings), and he is considered one of, if not the best, closer of all time.
Britton has not blown a save all season, and three of his runs came in the first month. This means that in 52 appearances since the beginning of May, he has only given up one earned run. Britton has never been a dominant strikeout guy like Aroldis Chapman, which makes the ERA even more impressive as Britton relies on inducing groundouts. Britton is the only answer to who should win the Mariano Rivera award, regardless if the Orioles snag the last wild card spot or not.
Manager of the Year
This answer is not as clear-cut as the Britton one, but I believe there is still only one clear answer for Manager of the Year. Terry Francona has had playoff success in the past with the Red Sox, but nowadays, he has the MLB world buzzing about the Cleveland Indians. The Indians were not expected to win the division by a majority of baseball experts at the beginning of the season, as the Royals were the reigning World Series champs. The Indians were not even expected to make the playoffs, as the AL East was projected to lock up at least one playoff wildcard spot and the Detroit Tigers would have too hot of an offense to be slowed down for the second spot. Buster Olney, Jerry Crasnick, Tim Kurkjian, and Jon Morosi are all experts who predicted that the Indians would not even be in a playoff spot by the end of September.
As of now, however, the Indians are sitting seven games ahead of the second-place team in the AL Central. Francona has a potential Cy Young winner on the staff complemented by more young pitching. He messed around with a lineup that led to Carlos Santana, a 210 pound first basemen, leading off for the better part of a season. All this culminated in success for a young team that may not win it all this
Francona has a potential Cy Young winner on the staff complemented by more solid, young pitching. He messed around with a lineup that led to Carlos Santana, a 210-pound first basemen, leading off for the better part of a season. All this culminated in success for a young team that may not win it all this
All of this culminated in success for a young team that may not win it all this year. However, they have the core pieces in place long-termterm success for the better part of the future. The Manager of the Year has the second best record in the MLB, despite rather lackluster preseason expectations for the team headed into the season.
All stats courtesy of baseball reference