The First Halfies!

Post #1 » by **Da Schwab** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 6:27 pm

It's that time of year again, which means the first half of the MLB season has come and gone. So, it's time to hand out the first half awards to those who will most surely falter in the second half... except for Albert Pujols.

MVPs

NL: Albert Pujols - .336 BA, 32 HRs, 85 RBI, 10 SBs, 71 BBs, 1.202 OPS

This is a no-brainer. Albert has been on a hot streak all season long, wasting no time to take advantage of a hitter friendly home park (which almost all of the NL Central parks are) and faulty pitching all across his division.

AL: Joe Mauer - .388 BA, 15 HRs, 48 RBI, 1.108 OPS

You can make a case for quite a few people in the AL, but Mauer has been an absolute monster since returning from injury on May 1st. Sure, this means he's missed a full month's worth of baseball and his team hasn't exactly improved without him (11-11 without, 32-32 with), but you know that mediocrity wouldn't have lasted without Mauer as the backstop.

Cy Youngs

NL: Tim Lincecum - 10-2, 2.33 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 149 Ks, 34 BBs, 2 SOs, 3 CGs

It still baffles me as to how his arm hasn't broken off his body and smacked the umpire in the face, but he continues to defy all the naysayers and racks up big numbers. He is uber-consistent (recently had his 29 inning scoreless streak end vs. San Diego) and has proven he can get the job done vs. big teams (threw a complete game, 2-hitter vs. St. Louis on June 29th, and even struck out Albert Pujols).

AL: Roy Halladay - 10-3, 2.85 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 106 Ks, 17 BBs, 1 SOs, 3 CGs

I love this man, no matter what he does to the Yankees. I'm hoping he keeps up his tremendous performance (regardless of where he could possibly end up) for the rest of the season and the others start to lag behind (Greinke, Felix, etc.).

ROYs

NL: Colby Rasmus - .281 BA, 11 HRs, 34 RBI, .815 OPS

He still has to learn to walk a bit more, but he's doing exactly what the Cardinals would hope he would: smack the cover off the ball and play solid OF. I will admit, though, that I'm not very well versed in the NL rookies, but he is someone I've been following, being as he's on my fantasy squad.

AL: Ricky Romero - 7-3, 2.96 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 66 Ks, 27 BBs

Another Jays pitcher, but this kid can be something special behind Doc in the rotation. Could make a case for a bunch of other pitchers in the AL: Andy Bailey, Rick Porcello, Jeff Niemann; but, I think Romero will be the one to keep up the consistency to win this award come September.

MOYs

NL: Bruce Bochy, San Francisco Giants

The Giants are 48-38, behind solid young pitching and a batting order that is getting younger, and has a lot of fire beneath it. They're two games ahead in the Wild Card standings right now, behind a surging Rockies squad.

AL: Ron Washington, Texas Rangers

At 48-37, the Rangers are currently the first place team in the west, albeit a half a game ahead of LA. Still, Ron Washington has done a good job of making sure his squad continues it's usual offensive pace, while greatly improving the rotation and bullpen, something that's been missing in Arlington for quite a while.

That'll do it for me. Who are your picks?

bigboy1234 · Post #2 » by **bigboy1234** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 7:00 pm

wasting no time to take advantage of a hitter friendly home park

Huh? Busch is more of a pitchers park then hitters.

Colby also plays a great defensive CF.

Can't really disagree any of your choices other than Greinke should be the AL Cy Young. And maybe Haren has an argument with Lincecum. And I haven't really looked at managers, so I'm not going to comment on that.

travis minor · Post #3 » by **travis minor** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 7:30 pm

Dan Haren is beating Lincecum in

IP,WHIP,BAA,ERA.

ill take Haren

Post #4 » by **TheLowlySquire** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 8:04 pm

NL MVP - Albert Pujols
Case can also be made for: No one. He's a beast.

AL MVP: Joe Mauer
Case can also be made for: Justin Morneau

NL Cy Young: Dan Haren
Case can also be made for: Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain

AL Cy Young: Zack Greinke
Case can also be made for: Roy Halladay

Don't know too much about the rookies or managers, but I'll go with Colby Rasmus and Andrew Bailey for ROY and Bruce Bochy and Ron Washington for MOY.

Post #5 » by **Da Schwab** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 8:06 pm

bigboy1234 wrote:
wasting no time to take advantage of a hitter friendly home park

Huh? Busch is more of a pitchers park then hitters.

Colby also plays a great defensive CF.

Can't really disagree any of your choices other than Greinke should be the AL Cy Young. And maybe Haren has an argument with Lincecum. And I haven't really looked at managers, so I'm not going to comment on that.

I always thought Busch was one of those tweener parks.

I know Rasmus has been good in the field, but I guess my lack of midwest exposure (and giving up on Baseball Tonight) is why I said 'solid' and not great, and I gave Halladay the Cy because he's dominating in the heavy-hitting East.

Post #6 » by **Da Schwab** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 8:07 pm

bobsaget101 wrote:NL MVP - Albert Pujols
Case can also be made for: No one. He's a beast.

AL MVP: Joe Mauer
Case can also be made for: Justin Morneau

NL Cy Young: Dan Haren
Case can also be made for: Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain

AL Cy Young: Zack Greinke
Case can also be made for: Roy Halladay

Don't know too much about the rookies or managers, but I'll go with Colby Rasmus and Andrew Bailey for ROY and Bruce Bochy and Ron Washington for MOY.

If Justin Morneau wins another MVP without even being the best player on his team, I'm going to lose it.

SportsWorld · Post #7 » by **SportsWorld** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 8:52 pm

NL MVP: Pujols
AL MVP: Mauer

NL Cy Young: Haren
AL Cy Young: Grienke

NL ROY: Rasmus/Tommy Hanson/Randy Wells Think it will probably end up being Tommy Hanson.
AL ROY: Porcello

NL MOY: Bruce Bochy
AL MOY: Terry Francona

CentralQB5 · Post #8 » by **CentralQB5** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 8:55 pm

NL MVP - Albert Pujols
AL MVP- Joe Maure
NL Cy Young- Dan Haren......possibly Tim Lincecum
AL Cy Young - Roy Hallady......possibly Zack Grinke
NL MOY- Bruce Bochy
AL MOY- Jim Leland ( you guys might not think so but the tigers are doing 100% better than last year at the break )

Post #9 » by **Schad** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 10:13 pm

NL MVP - Pujols. So very obvious.

AL MVP - Mauer. The missed games would hurt him if not for the fact that he's having an all-time great season. He could go hitless for an entire month and still have respectable numbers across the board.

NL Cy - Haren, though I suspect that Lincecum will pull it out in the end.

AL Cy - Greinke, though has he faded since the end of May, and Halladay probably has the inside track if totally healthy.

NL MOY - Manny Acta. Because, really, the guy deserves something.

AL MOY - Don't care.

NL ROY - Rasmus...I think Hanson's ERA is going to come down to earth in a big way.

AL ROY - Romero, who has out-pitched Porcello in a big way. With the exception of two bad starts after a month on the DL/rehabbing, he hasn't given up more than three runs in a game. Saying this means he'll implode tonight.

Post #10 » by **Da Schwab** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 11:09 pm

I don't get the Porcello love, at all.

Post #11 » by **TMU** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:39 am

Mauer is one of my favorite players but Morneau is Minny's MVP. Justin is putting up great numbers.

As for the AL Cy Young, my vote goes to Zach Grienke. He's been pitching exceptionally well without any support from the Royals batters.

Post #12 » by **craig01** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 7:36 pm

Halladay.

But it's certainly arguable.

RIPskaterdude · Post #13 » by **RIPskaterdude** » Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:12 pm

travis minor wrote:Dan Haren is beating Lincecum in

IP,WHIP,BAA,ERA.

ill take Haren

ahem....

Anybody want to take a shot at the only three back-to-back Cy Young winners in NL history? Think about it, and we'll let you know later.

What was much harder for us to think through was how to distinguish Tim Lincecum's sizzling first half from the brilliance of Arizona's Dan Haren, for a team that is 26-43 when anybody else starts. It isn't easy.

Their ERAs (2.16 for Haren, 2.33 for Lincecum) are almost identical. Haren leads in WHIP and VORP. Lincecum has a big lead in strikeouts (149-119). And we're not even considering wins, since Haren's run support (5 Criminally Unsupported Starts) is a farce. So how did we separate these two? By comparing their respective number of "dominating" starts. Lincecum has had seven starts with a game score of 75 or higher, to Haren's five. Lincecum has had five starts of seven or more innings, no runs allowed, to Haren's one. Lincecum has had 11 starts with more strikeouts than innings, to Haren's six. We don't know whether that's a fair standard, but it seemed reasonably sane to us.

So Lincecum is right on schedule to join Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux and Sandy Koufax in the old back-to-back NL Cy club room. But of course, you knew that. Right?

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=4317512