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By Jesse Stiller
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The 2017 baseball season is almost officially in the books, filled with new records, glimpses at the teams of next year, and of course, rising superstars. But there’s one thing that still needs to be settled that has everyone at odds.
The MLB awards.
With a slew of ace-pitchers, unstoppable sluggers, and all-around juggernauts to judge in the 2017 season, this year’s award races are sure to be one of the most hotly contested in recent memory. Coming on the heels of an historic MLB season, not just for some players, it’s not only the cherry on top, but another chance for players to add to their namesake with awards recognizing their accomplishments.
However, choosing the winner is harder than seeing who’s in and who’s out. With several high-caliber players in consideration for many awards this year, and the competition running stiff, there will be fans who are disappointed, or shouting accusations of rigging.
But in all cases, stats and consistency for a player add up to a decision. With record breakers and batting kings like Aaron Judge, Jose Altuve, Cody Bellinger, Nolan Arenado, everything counts.
To see if we can make the best possible projections, it’s important to analyze and break down the playing consistencies and other important stats to have a good hint at who our winner may be. It is also important to go over how a winner is chosen for these awards, especially in such an active year.
However, it is first important to go over the process of selecting a winner for an award as background for projections.
The people responsible for casting the deciding votes are the Baseball Writers Association of America. According to its official website, a group of a few hundred beat writers, columnists and national writers convene and cast ballots for MVP, Cy Young awards, and other minor awards. These writers follow a very specific format of point tallies to determine who wins. For example, the MVP ballots have 10 slots, and a player earns a specific number of points for their spot on that ballot. First place gets nine points, second gets eight, three gets seven, and it decreases by one each spot.
Similar rules apply for the five-spot ballot for the Cy Young award, and the three-spot ballot Rookie of the Year award. Again, these decisions are based on the statistics of a selected hitter or pitcher.
With that said, this year’s statistics for the best two candidates, one selected by a research expert, and the next best player, will be used to simplify the race for close award races and make some projections on who is the front runner in each category.
A key set of factors, especially batting average and Wins Above Replacement, or WAR, is a necessity when writers casts their respective ballots.
AL MVP
To begin, Matt L. Barron from MLB Research Analytics, or MLBresearch.com has a few opinions for some critical award races. While he is mostly a part-time political junkie, he is also an avid independent sports commentator as well as an experienced researcher in both politics and sports.
“I believe Jose Altuve will beat Aaron Judge for AL MVP,” Barron said about the race, citing consistency as a major issue.
At first glance, the advantages for both players seem split. Altuve leads the American League in hits (204), and batting average (.346). While not a major home run hitter nor clean-up man, he hit 24 HR and had 81 RBIs this year, this is Altuve’s fourth-consecutive year leading the league in hits, and his second-consecutive year leading in batting average, and the third time in four years.
Judge, on the other hand, had a rookie season for the history books. He knocked 52 home runs, topping Mark McGuire’s 1987 record of 49, and was second in the American League in runs batted in, with 114. Judge also had the second hardest hit ball and hardest hit home run this year (both were 121.1 mph), according to StatCast. He also leads all rookies in slugging (1.049), and on-base percentage (.422).
However, Judge endured a major slump shortly after the All-Star break, where in July and August combined, posted a dismal .213 batting average, 10 home runs, 39 runs batted in, and struck out 70 times. This was very different from the 27 home runs and 62 RBIs he accumulated between April and June. He also set a rookie record for strikeouts (208) and walks (127).
In this league, consistency is everything to any player. If you show consistency long enough, teams will have a hard time finding your weaknesses. If you fall into a slump, the cracks are easy to see for any pitcher, and they will capitalize. Both Altuve and Judge have high WARs, 8.3 and 8.1, but while Judge is the obvious batting champion, in terms of slugging average, home runs and runs batted in, as well as on-base plus slugging with a massive 1.047 number, Altuve is the more consistent player, only going once below .300 batting average per month this year and only striking out 84 times.
Sorry Yankees fans, but Judge’s consistency problems, and glaring strikeout problems will scare away voters. Expect Altuve to win a close one here this year, but it may change next year.
NL MVP
“NL MVP, I would give to Nolan Arenado. A key player on a great, rising team.” Barron said when asked for his thought on this award.
This is a gutsy pick, considering that it’s very hard to see why Giancarlo Stanton would not be considered the favorite after the best season of his career. Both players, looking at their stat lines, were positive aspects in two teams you don’t see often in October. While both had one of their best seasons in their careers, Stanton stands out the most.
The third baseman Arenado is one of the Rockies’ most reliable weapons, knocking in 130 RBIs, 37 home runs, and seven triples on a .303 batting average and .586 slugging average for an OPS of .959. These stats alone, including a 7.1 WAR and tying with Washington National Daniel Murphy for doubles with 14, sets a good bar on why he should be crowned MVP.
However, Giancarlo Stanton had his best season with the Marlins, leading the National League in home runs (59), RBIs (132), slugging (.631), and extra base hits (91). Stanton falls behind Arenado in Hits, with 168 compared to Arenado’s 187, and just behind Joey Votto’s 1.037 OPS, with a 1.007 of his own. In addition, Stanton’s near-60 HR season is something that has not been seen since Sammy Sosa’s 61 and Barry Bonds’ 73 in 2001.
However, another argument for Arenado’s case is that he bested Stanton in Batting average, with his .309 against Stanton’s .281, Was harder to strike out, with 106 strikeouts compared to Stanton’s 163, Nearly matched Stanton’s RBI count in an effective and consistent way, and helped power the quiet Rockies to the NL Wild Card game against the Diamondbacks.
Bottom line, Arenado had a great season, and will likely continue to find more success and potentially hit 40 home runs or more next season. But Stanton’s one-man show in a city with a less-than-exciting baseball team is something that will be shown repeatedly as he operates near the peak of his prime. Stanton will win easily, but Arenado earns a respectable second place.
AL Cy Young
The last close matchup to look at is this year’s AL Cy Young field. With a slew of young, talented, and very diverse pitchers, this year’s race can go anyway it wants to. With stars like Dallas Keuchel, Corey Kluber, and Chris Sale, the AL is sure to be closer than the NL Cy Young race.
“AL Cy Young will probably be Corey Kluber, even though he choked in the ALDS and was not as spectacular as he was in the postseason.” Barron said about this race.
Looking at the league leaders for all AL pitchers, Kluber’s name appears over half the time. Kluber leads the league in pitcher WAR (8.0), earned run average (2.25), tied for wins (18), Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched, or WHIP (0.87), and strikeout to walk ratio (7.361). With this, the 31-year-old pitched his best season in his career.
The only real competitor Kluber has is Boston’s Chris Sale, who leads the league in innings pitched (214.1), strikeouts (308), and strikeouts per nine innings pitched (12.933). This is the second time Sale has lead the league in strikeouts, the first coming in 2015, and the first 300 strikeout season for an AL pitcher since Pedro Martinez in 1999, where he struck out 313.
The pitching from Chris Sale matches Pedro Martinez’s 1999 season, where he won 23 games as well as a low WHIP and low ERA. However, Kluber has numbers that come close to replicating that season, especially in his ERA and WHIP. While both helped lead their teams to the ALDS, both of which got knocked out by the Astros and Yankees respectively, Kluber crushes Sale in the many measures of pitching
With that said, Kluber looks like the winner in this race, showing dominance in the AL pitching field not seen in a handful of years.
Some other races we want to make projections on are the following, as they are worth watching too:
- Manager of the year: Torey Louvello (Diamondbacks), for turning a nearly-dead franchise with potentially good players into Wild Card winners in one season.
- NL Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw (Dodgers), for his continuing dominance of lineups, unlike Max Scherzer’s volatile last few years.
- AL Rookie of the Year: Aaron Judge (Yankees), for his legendary, record-breaking rookie season.
- NL Rookie of the Year: Cody Bellinger (Dodgers) for his quick transition and his also-respectable rookie season with 39 home runs and 97 RBIs, just shy of the notable 30/100 season.