2005 MLB Awards and Playoff Preview

Nearly every November, baseball writers are forced to interpret the meaning of the year-end awards when filling out their ballots.
Does an MVP have to play on a winning team? Can a starting pitcher who only throws every five days be an MVP? Are relievers viable candidates for the MVP, Cy Young or both?
There are no wrong answers to these questions, of course, just differing opinions. Each award is open to a voter’s own interpretation of its meaning.
In many situations, the competition for an award determines a player’s worthiness. A player on a losing team should only win the MVP if there isn’t a great player on a winning team. A reliever should only win the Cy Young if there wasn’t a dominant performance by a starter. And a starting pitcher should only be considered for the MVP award in the most extreme circumstances.
These questions are especially important this year, when three of the four major baseball awards will be decided due to a voter's criteria for what it takes to win one.
Every baseball observer has a different idea of what an MVP or Cy Young winner should be. Here are mine:

American League MVP
Can a designated hitter win the MVP award? Just like with the other aforementioned questions, the answer is: It depends.
Clearly, the fact that a DH doesn’t play in the field is a huge consideration. And if all things at the plate were equal, another player would get the nod over a DH if he played at a Gold Glove-quality in the field.
Which, of course, brings us to Alex Rodriguez vs. David Ortiz.
Ortiz is the Red Sox DH, Rodriguez guards the hot corner for the Yankees. Many believe that the mere fact that Rodriguez plays in the field is enough to list him atop their ballots. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
According to every available fielding statistic, Alex Rodriguez is a below-average 3rd baseman. A. Rod had just 3.2 fielding win shares in 2005 which was ranked him 17th among MLB third-baggers, below such defensive stalwarts as Vinny Castilla and Melvin Mora. His 2.60 range factor was 2nd worst in baseball among qualified players, as was anemic .733 range factor. Should A. Rod really get credit in the MVP race for simply playing 3rd base? If he played it well, sure. But to view his poor play as an asset to his candidacy is unsound logic.
If the Yankees had stayed with Aaron Boone or signed Vinny Castilla to a free agent contract, their play at 3rd base would improve. How can that possibly boost A. Rod’s MVP stock?
What if Manny Ramirez, arguably the worst left fielder in baseball (though even Manny didn’t finish second-to-last in both zone rating and range factor), was in a MVP horserace with a DH? Would the mere fact that he stands in the outfield forgetting how many outs there are make him a more attractive candidate? Of course not.
Ortiz could go out and play 1st base every day and do it poorly, just like A. Rod does at 3rd. But the Red Sox choose to keep him on the bench and just take advantage of his bat. And for that, he shouldn’t be punished.
Now that its been decided that A. Rod’s fielding play gives him no discernable advantage over Big Papi, there’s still a decision to make. Which player was more valuable? Notice the question is not, “who is better?”, because I think A. Rod is a more complete hitter than Ortiz. But when it comes down to value, ask yourself this: If you take A. Rod out of the Yankees lineup, what would they have done this year? And the answer is, probably pretty much the same. Jeter, Sheffield, Matsui and the newly-juiced Jason Giambi could have held things down in the Bronx without the slap-happy A. Rod (right).
But, take Ortiz out of the Red Sox lineup and today Boston fans are turning their attention to the reeling Patriots instead of preparing for Game 1 of the ALDS.
Ortiz came through almost every time he was in a big spot this year. His at-bats in and of themselves were experiences to watch. You just knew he’d get the clutch hit in a tense situation, the way you knew Michael Jordan would hit that shot at the buzzer. Some of you may scoff at the Ortiz-MJ comparison, but in the clutch this year D.O. was certainly Jordan-esque.
You can go over A. Rod’s and Ortiz’s stats with a fine-tooth comb and come up with reasons why one should win the MVP over the other. (I won’t argue against A. Rod, which might come as a surprise to those who read this blog regularly.) Their stats are remarkably similar in that way. But one really caught my eye. It’s always dangerous to read too much into statistics without a big sample, sometimes they can be very deceiving. (For example, Mark Bellhorn hit .467 on 2-0 counts this season. Of course, he hit .204 on every other count.) But there’s one that, to me, clinches the AL MVP race:
In “close and late” situations, which is defined as an at-bat in the 7th inning or later with the batting team either ahead by one run, tied or with the potential tying run at least on deck, Alex Rodriguez’s line is a respectable: 75 AB, 5 2B, 4 HR, 12 RBI, .293 AVG, .938 OPS.
For Ortiz: 78 AB, 6 2B, 11 HR, 33 RBI, .346 AVG, 1.293 OPS.
Check. Mate.

1) David Ortiz – Boston Red Sox
2) Mariano Rivera – New York Yankees
3) Alex Rodriguez – New York Yankees

National League MVP
If the A.L. MVP decided whether a DH can win the MVP, the N.L. will answer if a player on a losing team should ever win the award over a player on a team headed into the playoffs.
How does one define value? Can a player only be valuable if he is on a team that enjoys success? Some voters will undoubtedly see it that way. But is a player who helps a team go from, say, 80 wins to 90 wins more important than a player who helps his team go from 60 wins to 75 wins? Why should the player on the better team get the benefit of the doubt.
A player has little control over what his teammates do, he can only control his own stats. Switch Albert Pujols and Derrek Lee this season and would anything change for the Cards and Cubs? No. The Cardinals would still have runaway with the Central and the Cubs would have been below .500.
I’m more inclined to view the MVP as the player who is most important to his team; hence my vote for David Ortiz. Take him away from the Red Sox and they don’t make the playoffs. That’s why my N.L. MVP vote goes to the Cubs Derrek Lee.
With him, the Chicago struggled to stay close to .500. Without him, Chicago would have been dead last in the N.L. Central.
If anyone wants to argue the merits of Albert Pujols or Andruw Jones, I won’t argue back. Both of those players are just as deserving. But only Lee led the N.L. in batting average, slugging percentage, OPS and doubles.

1) Derrek Lee – Chicago Cubs
2) Albert Pujols – St. Louis Cardinals
3) Andruw Jones – Atlanta Braves

American League Cy Young
Question #3: Do relievers deserve consideration for the Cy Young award? The answer, just like every other today, is yes with a “but”.
The only time a reliever should win a Cy Young is when that reliever puts together an unbelievable season while no starting pitcher in the league stands out. Eric Gagne took advantage of this a few years ago against a weak N.L. crop of starters.
In the American League this season, Mariano Rivera had yet another lights-out season. Without a dominant year by a starter, many have suggested it’s finally time for Rivera to earn the Cy Young award.
I agree with this… Partially. The Cy Young award isn’t for career achievement. The same way Peyton Manning didn’t deserve the Heisman in 1997 due to his amazing college career, Rivera’s remarkable run with the Yankees shouldn’t factor into the 2005 Cy Young award. The only thing that matters is Rivera’s pitching this season. Of course, that is enough to win him the award.
After his two blown saves early in the season against Boston (which were followed by a slew of “is Mariano done?” debates), Rivera was nearly flawless on the year. His 1.38 ERA was best among closers, as was his WHIP and BAA. Simply put, without Rivera the Yankees don’t make the playoffs.
So he should get the Cy Young, right?
Not so fast… Earlier I said that a reliever should only get the Cy Young if no other pitcher had a dominating year. And looking at wins and losses, it seems that no A.L. starter did have a great year. Bartolo Colon was 21-8, but his bloated 3.48 ERA ranked just 8th in the league. ERA leader Kevin Millwood had a solid season, but pitched fewer innings than Bruce Chen. But then there’s the defending Cy Young award winner and forgotten man Johan Santana.
Santana was once again remarkable in 2005. He led the A.L. in strikeouts, finished 2nd in ERA and after the All-Star break went 8-2 with a microscopic 1.61 ERA
The Cy Young award is supposed to go the best pitcher in the league. And in 2005 that was Johan Santana.

1) Johan Santana – Minnesota Twins
2) Mariano Rivera – New York Yankees
3) Bartolo Colon – Anaheim Angels

National League Cy Young
Just like with the N.L. MVP race, you can’t go wrong picking any number of guys to win the Cy Young award. For the past three months this was thought to be a three-horse race between Chris Carpenter, Dontrelle Willis and Roger Clemens. But after an unbelievable second-half, Clemens’ teammate Andy Pettitte joined the conversation too.
Like I said, you can’t go wrong picking any of these four pitchers, so instead of making a case against the three I didn’t select, I’ll attempt to sell the guy I did vote for.
Roger Clemens should be the N.L. Cy Young award winner. His ERA was 25% better than any other pitcher in the league and he had the lowest WHIP as well. The two knocks on Clemens are that he: a) doesn’t have enough wins and b) didn’t pitch as many innings as the other contenders.
The low amount of innings pitched concerned me (I just knocked Kevin Millwood for the same thing). Rocket averaged one less inning per start than both Willis and Carpenter. If Clemens’ ERA were closer to those players, the innings pitched would knock him out of the race. But Clemens’ ERA is so much better that it sort of evens out.
As for the wins, I refuse to even discuss that. A pitcher has no control over what his offense does. If The Rocket was still in Boston, he would have been 25-3. That the Astros offense stinks is irrelevant. Clemens did what he had to do on the mound, everything else is out of his hands.
Great cases can be made for Willis and Carpenter, but Clemens gets my vote. He was the N.L.’s best pitcher.

1) Roger Clemens – Houston Astros
2) Dontrelle Willis – Florida Marlins
3) Chris Carpenter - St. Louis Cardinals

American League Rookie of the Year
Street is going to be the best player of the bunch, but Gomes’ extra-base hit totals give him this increasingly irrelevant award.

1) Jonny Gomes – Tampa Bay Devil Rays
2) Huston Street – Oakland A’s
3) Robinson Cano – New York Yankees

National League Rookie of the Year
Francouer was the media darling in 2005, but the Phillies Ryan Howard gets the nod as N.L. Rookie of the Year thanks to some monster power numbers accrued in just 308 at-bats. Howard replaced Jim Thome as “that guy on the Phillies who looks like he’s going to hit a homerun every time he steps to the plate.” Francoeur will be great if he can cut down on his strikeouts, but Howard already is the real deal.
And yes, Willy Tavares was up with the Astros all year, but giving him the award is like a lesser actor winning an Oscar just because his movie was longer.

1) Ryan Howard – Philadelphia Phillies
2) Jeff Francouer – Atlanta Braves
3) Willy Tavares – Houston Astros

American League Manager of the Year
If I had an actual vote, I’d write-in Yankees pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre as my A.L. Manager of the Year, despite the fact that he’s neither a manager or… Well, he’ just not a manger. There was no or. What Stottlemyre did for Aaron Small and Shawn Chacon was nothing short of amazing.
But, since that’s not going to happen, I’ll give it to the delightfully insane Ozzie Guillen in a close race with former Devil Rays manager Lou Piniella who led his team with 1/9th of the Yankees payroll to a 38-34 record after the All-Star break.

1) Ozzie Guillen – Chicago White Sox
2) Lou Piniella – Tampa Bay Devil Rays
3) Mel Stottlemyre – New York Yankees

National League Manager of the Year
Yost and Robinson got the most out of little talent in Milwaukee and Washington, respectively, but this award is Cox’s until the Braves finally lose the N.L. East.

1) Bobby Cox – Atlanta Braves
2) Ned Yost – Milwaukee Brewers
3) Frank Robinson – Washington Nationals

Playoff Preview

American League
2003 was a great year for the Yanks and Sox rivalry. The ALCS had the Pedro/Zimmer fight, some unbelievable finishes and Aaron Boone’s pennant-winning homerun in Game 7. With the A. Rod and Schilling stories dominating that off-season and unprecedented hype headed into 2004, it seemed impossible that New York and Boston would be able to live-up to all the expectations. And they didn’t. They far exceeded them.
Last year the two teams played 19 epic regular season games; including the 14-inning classic at Yankee Stadium which featured a routine catch by Derek Jeter that somehow ended up with him getting a black eye and the Arroyo/Rodriguez/Varitek/Ramirez brawl in Fenway in a game that culminated with a furious Red Sox comeback punctuated by Bill Mueller’s 9th-inning game winning homerun. Surely the ALCS couldn’t match-up against those classics. Yet somehow it did.
The Yanks took a huge lead in Game 1 off an injured Curt Schilling and held off a Sox comeback late. Game 2 was closer, but the cold Boston bats and the “who’s your daddy” chants gave New York a 2-0 lead headed back to Fenway. There, the Yankees demolished the Sox 19-8 in a Game 3 delayed one day by rain. It seemed that Red Sox fans would go through another cold winter of despair and visits to their shrinks.
But after falling behind 2-0 and 4-3 in Game 4, Kevin Millar walked and Dave Roberts stole the most famous base in baseball history in the bottom of the 9th. Soon the game was tied and a David Ortiz homer in the bottom of the 12th gave the Sox new life.
The Sox were again down late in Game 5, but thanks to another D.O. homerun and more Roberts baserunning, the Sox tied it up in the 8th. A serendipitous ground-rule double off the bat of Tony Clark, left the game tied until the 14th when another game-winning hit from David Ortiz put the Sox down 3-2 in the series.
Curt Schilling’s gutsy Game 6 performance tied up the ALCS and early homeruns from Ortiz and the ice-cold Johnny Damon (predicted in a dream by my buddy Horowitz who just called and said he saw a similar vision for Jason Varitek this afternoon) in Game 7 put the Sox in their first World Series since 1986.
Surely, after all that, the Yanks/Sox rivalry couldn’t get any better… Could it? Some early season contests, highlighted by two Mariano Rivera blown saves (which resulted in Rivera getting an unprecedented standing ovation at Fenway during the team’s World Series celebration), were great, but the rest of the games lacked the drama of the previous year. But, once again, the stage was set for another classic Yanks/Sox moment last Friday with the Yanks headed to Fenway for a season-closing three-game series with a one-game cushion in the A.L. East. But despite all the expectations, the series fizzled.
Due to the Indians collapse, the series meant little and the Yanks actually clinched on Saturday, despite the fact that a loss Sunday meant the two teams were tied. (I went off on this yesterday, so I’ll spare you today.) For the first time in two years, the Yankees and Sox failed to deliver a memorable moment, which is why I don’t see them meeting in the ALCS. It would be too perfect.

American League Divisional Series
Boston Red Sox over Chicago White Sox (4)
Anaheim Angels over New York Yankees (5)

American League Championship Series
Anaheim Angels over Boston Red Sox (5)

National League
Just like in the A.L., the National League playoffs are so evenly matched making a prediction is close to impossible. The only sure thing is that the Padres won’t make it to Game 4.
Houston has become the trendy to pick to win the World Series. And as with all things trendy, a few weeks from now people will look back on the Astros pick and say, ‘what the hell were we thinking.” Everyone seems to forget that Houston has no offense to speak of. Their pitching staff is great, but hittable. The Braves pitching staff is nothing to sneeze at and I think they’ll pull out a close one in five.
I won’t bother writing about my theoretical NLCS match-up; I’ll preview that before it happens. But I will mention that I picked five of the six baseball division winners in my MLB preview and one of the two Wild Cards. My Boston over Atlanta World Series prediction is still possible, but that was when I assumed a healthy Curt Schilling and Wade Miller would be in the Red Sox rotation.

National League Divisional Series
St. Louis Cardinals over San Diego Padres (3)
Atlanta Braves over Houston Astros (5)

National League Championship Series
St. Louis Cardinals over Atlanta Braves (6)

World Series
St. Louis Cardinals over Anaheim Angels (6)