POST SEASON AWARDS

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Posted By: Jay Miller 

Now that the regular season is over, who do you all think will win the two major awards (MVP, Cy Young) in each league? I think Santana and Vlad for the AL and Clemens and Bonds for the NL.

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Posted By: qualitycards

I think that Schilling may edge out Santana.
It would be interesting if Clemens & Barry got more awards. Their houses must look like the Hall Of Fame.

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Posted By: John/z28jd

I think all 4 of your guesses will be right.Its always funny to hear people chant mvp whenever their hometown guy gets up like i heard in Boston for Ramirez/Ortiz,NY with Sheffield and Dodgers with Beltre.
If Bonds doesnt win it for what he did this year they better rethink they way the voting is handled.He set walks and on base record,his slugging percent was 160 points higher than 2nd place.He won the batting crown,he hit a homer every 8.5 at-bats,finished 2nd in runs scored,batted 400 with runners on base,and for the first time ever for a guy who qualified for a batting title,and probably any guy who ever got a significant amount of at-bats,he reached base more times than official at-bats 376-373,thats unfathomable.

Most remarkable stat is the OPS stat which is a good sign of a players worth,combines slugging and on base percents.Bonds was 334 points higher than 2nd place who was Todd Helton playing in thin air colorado.Thats the same point difference between Todd Helton and 120th place on that list.

I wouldnt complain if Schilling or Sheffield won and Randy Johnson had a remarkable year for a bad team but those 4 Jay said are my choices

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Posted By: Brian H (misunderestimated)

The usual preferences for winners/playoff teams and guys who delivered in the seond half of the season make these four the best choices.


Although Bonds and the Giants fell 1 game shy of the playoffs and Beltre and a few of the Cardinal hitters had MVP callibre seasons, anyone who has bought even slightly into sabremetrics and statistics beyond HR, RBI and AVG recognizes that Barry (like him or not) had yet another season among the greatest of all time for a position player.

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Posted By: Judge Dred

I'd give the edge to Schilling - Didn't Santana have a weaker record against winning teams. I know he was fairly dominant over the weaker teams.

Vlad's last few weeks and the Angels rise pushes him over the top.

Bonds - wow, if he doesn't get the MVP you know he must have alienated a few writers because NOBODY is even close. Without Bonds the Giants could have been the Diamondbacks.

Clemens or Oswalt? Clemens sure did put up some better numbers (better ERA, better win % and lower opp BA and more K's) but Oswalt put up 20. Let sanity prevail - go with Clemens.

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Posted By: Gary B.

Bonds successfully managed to get more home runs than strike outs - unbelievable.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Jay is on the money.

Jay- agreeing with Jay. Is that redundant?

I saw weird stuff in that place last night. Weird, strange, sick, twisted, eerie, godless, evil stuff. And I want in.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jay, you and I are four for four. Those were exactly my picks. That's seven Cy Youngs for Clemens, and I believe seven MVP's for Bonds. Not too shabby.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

is Roger Clemens incredible or what...........? Nearly 41 years old and pulls down 18 wins........why retire?

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Posted By: ChuckkieB

MVP - Bonds and Vlad
CY - Santana and R. Johnson

Randy Johnson's numbers are better than Clemens in every category except wins......and 16 wins on a 51 win team is INCREDIBLE!

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Posted By: qualitycards

I agree Randy Johnson did the impossible, he had a winning record (16-14) w/ a team that lost 111 games. In 17 of Johnson's 34 starts he rec'd 2 or fewer runs of support. He led the majors w/ 290 K's and pitched a perfect game against the AL East winning Braves.
Imagine if he did get traded before the deadline, how much better the Yankees or Dodgers would have been going into the post season.
Either Johnson receiving his 6th Cy Young or Clemens getting his 7th - ya can't go wrong.

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Posted By: GlenV

Bonds & Johnson deserve the awards, but Bonds and Clemens will get them. How 'bout manager of the year - some very deserving candidates for that award.

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Posted By: qualitycards

In the NL, I would vote for Cox over Larussa. Most picked the Braves way behind the Phillies, Marlins & Mets.
In the AL, I would choose Gardenhire as he keeps the Twins competitive. Torre would be a good choice too!, got the most wins in the AL, w/ a rag-tag pitching staff.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Good addition on Manager of the Year. I like Phil Garner for turning the Lastros back into the Astros. In the AL I like Scocia, especially for getting rid of Guillen. Torre is a close second here.

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Posted By: Todd

I sure hope Santana wins, but worry about the East Coast bias working against him. He's lost 2 games since June 3rd--that's 4 months. He lost -2-1 to Chicago on July 1st, striking out 12 and giving up 3 hits in 8 innings, and he lost 2-0 on July 10 to Detroit, striking out 11 and giving up just 2 hits in 8. Since then, he beat everyone, including Boston, Oakland, Anaheim, Texas and the Yankees, who he would have beat again last week had Gardy not pulled him after 5 with a 3-1 lead, resting him for tomorrow. That's pretty damn impressive.

No offense to Schilling,who I like, but Santana has him in both ERA (2.61 to 3.22) and Ks (265-203)by a wide margin. I would also venture a guess that Curt had a lot more offensive support throughout the season. Finally, as to those who claim Santana didn't beat anyone, see above, and know that Schilling had 4 of his wins against Tampa Bay. I also think it very odd that, despite playing the Yankees 19 times, Schilling only started 3 times against them, and not once in New York. Hmmmm.

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Posted By: Rhys

Somewhere about 15 years ago the "MVP" award slowly became the "MVPWT" award. Meaning that the "Most Valuable Player" which originally meant the Best player, has turned into the Most Valuable player on a winning team. I know AROD won it last years but he was so far and away the best player it was ridiculous. Had Ichiro or Randy Johnson played on winning teams the debate would not even be fun. Ichiro had one of the best seasons EVER, yet he will not win the award. 30 years from now people will still be talking about the season Ichiro had, 100 years from now, people will still be talking about it. Imagine going through the record books and seeing the numbers Sisler put up in 1920 and seeing that he didn't win the MVP award (if they had it then) because he didn't play for a winning team, and instead it went to a role playing Yankee because he was on a "winner". If the MVP and CY Young awards are given the meaning they were originally intended (and you can look up past winners to prove this point) which is "Best Player and Best Pitcher in the League" and not their modern adaptations which state that you must be on a contender, then the Best players are as follows.

AL MVP Ichiro
AL Cy Young Johan Santana
NL MVP Barry Bonds
NL Cy Young Randy Johnson

Pretty soon the Major League Post Season awards will be like the BCS. If you do not play for the Yankees, Red Sox or another perennial winner then you have an uphill battle and it will be hard to win it ever.

Just my opinion and I know most do not agree, but look at the language and the history of the award and it is clear that this emphasis on "being on a winning team" is a recent phenomenon. Take records away and Ichiro and Bonds were the best players in baseball this year.

Rhys

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Posted By: Julie

For reasons stated above.

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Posted By: Jay Miller

Rhys--You may have a point on the Cy Young award. I've always thought of it as being for the best pitcher, not necessarily the most valuable pitcher. However, the MVP is just that--the MOST VALUABLE player. Even saying that, if Ichiro played for the Red Sox, the Yankees or the Angels and had the season he had he still wouldn't win the MVP. Bad Vlad put the Angels on his back and single-handedly carried them to the West Championship. Ichiro had a great season but no one was more valuable than Vlad.

Getting back to the NL Cy Young award I think that it is close but Clemens should beat Johnson. First, their ERAs were both good (Johnson-2.60; Clemens-2.98). Strikeouts, in my mind, mean nothing. You get guys out the way you can. The Astros are not a great fielding team and if Clemens struck out fewer guys than Johnson then he had to have his subpar fielders get the outs for him. Just think of Jeff Kent at second base. The W-L record is the key for me. If it were close then I would give it to Johnson, but Johnson was barely over .500 and Clemens was 18-4. Clemens on the season had 10 no decisions. In two of those he allowed no runs and in four others he allowed one run. He also had three saves blown for him where he went out leading by two or more runs. Go Rocket!

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Posted By: Jay Miller

BTW, my ranking for AL MVP would be:

Guerrero
Sheffield
Ramirez
Ortiz
Santana
Rivera

Ichiro, who I love as a player and was one of the best players on my fantasy baseball team, ain't even in the top ten.

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Posted By: Albie O'Hanian

AL
Cy Young - Santana
MVP - Ramirez

NL
Cy Young - Clemens
MVP - Bonds

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Posted By: John/z28jd

I couldnt rate Ichiro any higher than Jay for the simple reason is hes purely a singles hitter.Yes he had a great season but almost all of his hits were singles,he slaps at the ball as hes running towards first,a very effective style thats enhanced by his speed.If he led the league in runs scored then id give him alot more consideration but he was tied for 34th in the majors in that stat.Like i said earlier with Bonds i consider OPS to be a very important measure of a player and eventho Ichiro led the majors in batting which gives you a good head start on OPS he finished just out of the top 40 in baseball.Basically proving the fact hes a good singles hitter on a bad team and his speed didnt help him enough to help his team score more runs because he was always on first base.

Guerrero meanwhile carried a team with numerous injuries to the playoffs so eventho you dont want to automatically give it to a guy on a winning team in his case it has to count for something.He had 250 combined runs/rbi's,and his on base percent was just a little behind Ichiro's.I'd much rather have a guy who hit .337 with lots of power rather than a guy who hit .370 with none.Vlad also had more total bases with his 56 less hits and more walks with his 92 less at-bats.Vlad is also one of the few peoples who Ichiro's defense/speed doesnt help him against. They probably have the 2 best arms in the league and Guerrero's already put up two 36 steal seasons which Ichiro did this year with all those times on base. Vlad is just too valuable to have him running all the time but he still stole 15 in 18 tries anyway,a much higher success rate.

Ichiro had a great season but i hope no one considers his season on par with Sislers 1920 season just because he had more hits

Manager of the year should go to Cox in the NL,his team was thought to be done and Scoscia in the AL because of all the injuries and the tough division.Torre is hurt by being in a division with Baltimore,Toronto and Tampa Bay which were all subpar teams and having 190 million dollars worth of players.Its kind of tough to screw that up with such odds in his favor.I dont know any manager that could start a season with 12 potential all-stars and not win 101 games.They wouldve had to win at least another 10-15 for me to consider him just for the fact anything less than 100 wins couldve been considered a disappointment.

Garner is hurt in the NL because he wasnt there half the year but hes helped because he joined a team that shouldve been playing much better.Larussa should be helped by the fact that his pitching staff wasnt the best to start the year and most people picked them to finish 3rd behind the Cubs and Astros but i still like Bobby Cox as my choice.

PS NL ROY better go to Jason Bay of the Pirates,over Khalil Greene of the Padres who is ESPNs poster boy but obviously didnt produce as much as Bay.Greene wasnt even the best rookie on his team,Akinora Otsuka was who put up unreal stats out of the bullpen in 72 games

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Posted By: jay behrens

How many of you guys saw the SABR reasearch project that showed that 1 point of OBQ is worth 2 points of SLG. Very interesting reading and might change you outlook on Ichiro a bit.

Jay

I saw weird stuff in that place last night. Weird, strange, sick, twisted, eerie, godless, evil stuff. And I want in.

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Posted By: Jimmy Leiderman

AL CY: Santana
NL CY: Clemens

AL MVP: Guerrero
NL MVP: Bonds (Would like to see Beltre, but...)

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Posted By: J Levine

A few things...you can not discount Ichiro just because he was a singles hitter...heck, people have won it just for HRs...but I dont think he deserves it...

And another aside for Bonds OBP (on-base %)...if you took out his walks and HBPs he would still rank 14th!! in OBP in the National Leauge!! That is amazing!

My vote: Vlad for A.L., Bonds for N.L. (eventhough Beltre is gonna be real close).
Santana (no Johan and Minnesota is in 3rd place), Clemens (win %, SO, and ERA are all great).

-Joshua

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Posted By: jw

n.l. m.v.p.-bonds
n.l. cy young-johnson
a.l. m.v.p.-santana
a.l. cy young-schilling

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Posted By: jw

watched alot of baseball this summer & no one, i mean no one, single-handedly put their team in the playoffs like santana did.

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Posted By: Tim Mayer

cy santana
mvp rivera or sheff.
al


cy clemens
mvp bond
nl

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Posted By: Judge Dred

Take away all 135 of Bond's hits and he's still #11 in the OBP ranking (.393).

This has got to be one of the most statistically freakish years for any player. I'm not a big Bonds fan but I'm not so blind that I can't see greatness.

Someone else already brought up the point of less K's than HR's (and over 40HR's - incredible).

It must have been a tough season for him to go to the plate to take the free passes. I watched him during a few batting practice sessions - thank goodness they couldn't walk him then. He's one of those players that you can enjoy just watching him hit BP.