The Envelope, Please...
Welcome to the Week That Was year-end awards show, where everybody emerges victorious. Except Prince Fielder.
o American League MVP: Mike Trout. Will sportswriters repent for past transgressions and make Trout a unanimous choice? Runner up: Michael Brantley. Jose Abreu will get his love below, so lets just take a second to appreciate Brantley’s .329 average, 20 homers, 97 RBI and 94 runs. Owners that bought in to the idea of a breakout season were rewarded in gold.
o National League MVP: Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw should become the first pitcher to win the NL MVP and Cy Young award in the same season since Bob Gibson in 1986. The left-hander finished 21-3 with a 1.77 ERA and 239/31 K/BB ratio. Runner up: Andrew McCutchen, with a shout out to Buster Posey.
o American League Cy Young: Corey Kluber. Yeah, I said it. Felix Hernandez had a better ERA, but that’s where the advantages end. Kluber, who finished 18-9 with a 2.44 ERA, 1.09 WHIP and 269/51 K/BB ratio over 235 2/3 innings, had more wins, a better strikeout rate, a lower FIP (2.39 to 2.60) and, perhaps more importantly, a decided advantage in WAR (7.0 to 6.0). Runner up: Hernandez. King Felix punted a Cy Young award that seemed assured just a few weeks ago. After a horrific end to the season, he finished behind not only Kluber in AL starter WAR, but Phil Hughes and Jon Lester as well.
o National League Cy Young: Kershaw. Runner up: Adam Wainwright in a close call over Johnny Cueto.
o American League Rookie of the Year: Jose Abreu. Abreu essentially locked this award up when Masahiro Tanaka went down. Runner up: Tanaka over Colin McHugh and Yordano Ventura.
o National League Rookie of the Year: Jacob deGrom. In 22 starts, the 26-year-old breakout rookie went 9-6 with a 2.63 ERA and 1.13 WHIP. Question is: Can he pitch even close to as good in 2015? DeGrom’s major league peripherals, including his strikeout and walk rates, portend future success. What complicates the projection is deGrom’s non-dominant minor league track record. In 300-plus innings on the farm, he went 21-11 with a 3.62 ERA, 1.28 WHIP and 7.4/2.3 K/BB/9 ratio. I can’t say I trust deGrom to exceed his minor league strikeout rates going forward. A reasonable 2015 projection probably pegs him around his minor league numbers, with the strikeouts coming down as big league hitters get more aggressive to combat deGrom’s consistent pressure of the strike zone. Runner up: Billy Hamilton. If this award were “Fantasy National League Rookie of the Year,” Hamilton would have won easily. With 56 steals and 72 runs, Hamilton will finish the year as a top-30 fantasy player. If he improves upon a .250 batting average in 2015, he will become a challenger for the league’s most valuable fantasy player. Speed is that scarce these days.
o American League Most Valuable Fantasy Player: Jose Altuve. At no point would I have traded Mike Trout for Altuve in any league or any format, but at the end of the day, the diminutive second baseman’s fantasy season was fractionally better. Playing at a scarcer position, Altuve batted .343 with 56 stolen bases and 84 runs. In roto formats, the scoring metrics of which I’m using to judge this competition, he was borderline dominant. Runner up: Trout.
o National League Most Valuable Fantasy Player: Clayton Kershaw. And he didn’t even need to pitch in April. Runner up: Giancarlo Stanton. The early end to Stanton’s season opened the door for Andrew McCutchen to top his fantasy production, but McCutchen didn’t quite get there.
o American League Least Valuable Fantasy Player: Prince Fielder. The low-first/high second-round preseason pick batted .247 with three homers and 16 RBI before a neck injury ended his season. Runner up: Justin Verlander. A top 10-12 starter in spring drafts, Verlander went 15-12 with a 4.54 ERA and 1.40 WHIP. Verlander gets the nod over Jim Johnson, who was so awful so early that at least his owners could release him and move on with a better pitcher. Verlander was one of fantasy’s move unmovable objects this season, just rotting all season in the same rotation he began with.
o National League Least Valuable Fantasy Player: Carlos Gonzalez. If you drafted Fielder or CarGo, chances are that you didn’t have to text your commissioner with an address to send your winnings. Four straight 20/20 seasons crumbled via injury to the tune of a .238 average and 11 homers. Runner up: Jean Segura. He was a top-75 draft pick and batted .241 while missing scant time, an ever-present stink bomb in fantasy lineups.
2014 All-Fantasy American League squad
C: Carlos Santana, CLE (also had 1B and 3B eligibility). Because of Santana’s supreme position eligibility, I’m going to forgive his atrocious start and give him the nod here over teammate Yan Gomes and Kansas City’s Salvador Perez.
1B: Jose Abreu, CHW. Victor Martinez, Jose Bautista and Miguel Cabrera also have 1B eligibility, but they’ve been slotted elsewhere on the AFAL team.
2B: Jose Altuve, HOU. Robinson Cano and Ian Kinsler both had great seasons with new teams, but their respective fantasy production was nowhere near that of Altuve’s.
SS: Jose Reyes, TOR. Close call over Alexei Ramirez.
3B: Miguel Cabrera, DET (the multi-position eligibility was fun while it lasted). Adrian Beltre would have been the pick if Cabrera were confined to first base.
OF: Mike Trout, ANA. Only 16 steals?! You can do better, Mike!
OF: Michael Brantley, CLE. If Trout had a better fantasy season than Brantley, it was only fractionally.
OF: Jose Bautista, TOR (also had 1B eligibility). Putting the finishing touches on his best season since 1011.
UTIL: Victor Martinez, DET. Nobody close here. V-Mart is deserving of a top-three finish in the AL MVP voting.
SP: Felix Hernandez, SEA. I narrowly gave the AL Cy Young to Corey Kluber, but Hernandez deserves the nod if you’re basing the decision on fantasy value alone. Kluber had more wins and strikeouts than Hernandez, but King Felix’s advantages in ERA and WHIP make him the harder fantasy value to replace.
RP: Huston Street, ANA. Between his work with the Padres and Angels, Huston Street was one of the five-best fantasy relievers this year. Expect the 31-year-old to get overdrafted in the spring.
2014 All-Fantasy National League squad:
C: Buster Posey, SFG (also had 1B eligibility). A strong close the season made Posey an easy choice over Jonathan Lucroy.
1B: Todd Frazier, CIN (also had 3B eligibility). If Frazier’s multi-position ability didn’t allow us to shift him across the diamond, Rizzo would have earned AFNL team honors.
2B: Dee Gordon, LAD (also had shortstop eligibility). Gordon against Anthony Rendon would have been an interesting debate for second base honors (I would still have taken Gordon). Gordon is a one-category fantasy powerhouse (64 steals), and he also hit .286 and scored 90 runs.
SS: Ian Desmond, WAS. If you remove Gordon from the shortstop debate, which we have, Desmond doesn’t have any competition.
3B: Anthony Rendon, WAS (also had 2B eligibility). Rendon vs. Todd Frazier is almost too close to call. Luckily, we didn’t have to.
OF: Giancarlo Stanton, MIA. Stanton would have made far more difficult for Kershaw to win the NL MVP if his season hadn’t come to an unfortunate premature close. Vegas will probably make Stanton the preseason favorite for 2015 honors.
OF: Andrew McCutchen, PIT. A top-four fantasy pick in spring drafts, the Pirates star gave owners everything they could have reasonably asked for.
OF: Carlos Gomez, MIL. Five-category contributor edged out one-category stud Ben Revere to make the team.
UTIL: Charlie Blackmon, COL. Remember when people thought it was a bad idea for the Rockies to trade Dexter Fowler? It happened. It was a thing. You’ll just have to believe me.
SP: Clayton Kershaw, LAD. Not much to talk about here.
RP: Craig Kimbrel, ATL. Runner-up Francisco Rodriguez was one of the season’s best waiver wire acquisitions.
Speed round!
o The Diamondbacks fired manager Kirk Gibson and bench coach Alan Trammell on Friday, one day after they announced Dave Stewart as general manager and De Jon Watson as senior vice president of baseball operations.
o Charlie Morton underwent surgery to his right hip labrum on Friday. He has been prescribed rest for the next 6-8 months.
o Bobby Abreu announced that he will retire at season’s end. In other retiree news, Derek Jeter had his first walk-off hit since 2007 in his final game at Yankee Stadium on Thursday against the Orioles. He said after the game that he would never play shortstop again.
o It was reported that Josh Willingham had decided to retire after this season, but he quickly refuted the news, saying he would make a decision over the winter.
o Derek Holland was scratched with a migraine from what would have been his final regular-season start on Saturday against the A's. Holland, who didn’t pitch until September due to knee surgery, finished 2-0 with a 1.31 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, and 24/4 K/BB ratio across 34 1/3 innings.
