My Awards Ceremony

Everyone's doing it, so I may as well too.  This is all about who I think deserve the awards, based on my interpretation of them.  Disagree if you must, but this one's about my personal opinions.

AL MVP: Mike "Ehrman" Trout.  That's a Breaking Bad reference, and you fucking suck if you don't get it.
.326/.399/.564, 30 HR, 49 SB. 10.4 WAR

This one isn't even close.  Forget that he's 20 years old, because age shouldn't (and doesn't) really factor in to the MVP discussion.  Mike Trout was the best player in baseball this year.  Period.  Most WAR, no matter the site, excellent offense, supreme baserunning, and stellar defense at a premium position.  There is no argument, in my opinion, and the entire internet has all the arguments that I don't really even need to link here, so I won't.  Honorable mention to Miguel Cabrera, who had the second best season in the AL.  Look forward to a point-counterpoint city hall effort on Nowhere Plans soon.

NL MVP: Buster Posey.  .308/.408/.549, 24 HR.

This one could go a number of ways and I wouldn't be too upset.  Ryan Braun put up a pretty amazing year, as did Andrew McCutchen, but I give the edge to Buster.  I'm cool with breaking a tie with a playoff berth, I guess, but regardless, I'm with Posey due to the awesomeness of a catcher going out there and putting those kind of numbers up.  Posey's second half was truly retarded.

AL ROY:  Mike Trout.

This one's pretty fucking obvious, no?  Darvish comes 2nd.

NL ROY: Wade Miley. 194IP, 3.33 ERA, 3.15FIP, 3.73 xFIP.  6.66 k/9, 1.71 bb/9

It's him or Bryce Harper, I guess.  Miley's numbers are even better due to the park factors of Chase Field, where the ball just kind of flies outta there, though I suppose that's neutralized a bit by the lack of offense in the division and the other park factors in the NL West.  Harper's accomplishments this year shouldn't be overlooked, and he's certainly valid, especially given the way he ended the season.

AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander. 238 IP, 9 k/9, 2.3 bb/9, 2.64 ERA

Honorable mention to David Price.  If the two had numbers a bit closer together, I'd go with Price, since the AL East and the AL Central are two fairly different places to play.  Verlander is just really fucking dominant. I'm cool with Price though, and seeing as he won the ERA title and 20 games, he's got a pretty decent shot at winning the Cy.

NL Cy Young: Craig Kimbrel.  3.9 h/9, 2bb/9, 16.7 k/9. 1.01 ERA, 50.2% k-rate.

I wouldn't typically condone voting for a reliever to win the CY, but I've got to make an exception here.  Kimbrel was the best pitcher in the NL this year, and I don't really think it was overly close.  It's pretty obvious that starters are more valuable than relievers, if for no other reason than the innings pitched, but there was no real performance by a starter that stood above everyone else for me, and Kimbrel struck out MORE THAN HALF of the batters that he faced this year.  I understand that it's easier for relievers to succeed, considering the fact that they can go out there and throw as hard as possible over about 40% of the innings, and that they never have to face the same batter multiple times in a game.  For those reasons, any reliever needs to be head and shoulders above everyone else to win the CY in my mind.  Kimbrel has done that this year, because his season was so fucking stupid good that it was a crime to miss any appearance of his at any instance in which he pitched this year.

Honorable mention to R.A. Dickey.