The TBL Midseason Baseball Awards, Superlatives & Everything Else You Could Want
By Mike Cardillo
We are just over the midway point of the 2015 baseball regular season. Hooray! That means its time to hand out some totally made up awards in blog form. Double hooray!
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Biggest surprise: Minnesota Twins
With apologies to the first-place Astros, nobody expected the Twins to be sticking around in contention especially after a 1-6 start to the season. As of Wednesday morning Minnesota (45-39) is in the playoffs via the Wild Card. Houston is 12 games over .500 and leads the AL West by 2.5 games, but if you were paying attention there were signs the Astros would be a lot better.
When the season began Minnesota was probably the only team in the American League that not a single “expert” made a case for to contend. At the end of the year, yeah, the Astros record will look a lot more surprising due to the string of 100-loss seasons and their punchline status on blogs. Don’t forget coming into 2015 Minnesota lost 90+ games for four straight seasons. For comparison the last four seasons the Twins lost 383 games compared to 416 by the Astros. Point is, both teams are surprises but unlike Houston (dingers, improved bullpen, young stars maturing), nobody seems to agree on why Minnesota is playing so much better than expected.
Biggest disappointment: Seattle Mariners
Welp … at least Nelson Cruz hasn’t lost his power moving to Safeco. Unfortunately Robinson Cano is struggling to his worst season as a pro. A trendy World Series pick, myself included, as of Tuesday afternoon the Mariners are six games out of the second Wild Card.
The Red Sox looked like a lock for this ignominious title, but Boston’s played somewhat better in the last two weeks and is somehow only five games out of first in the mediocre American League East. The White Sox, Marlins and Padres also merit consideration if only for their busy offseasons resulting in sub-500 records.
Best Statistical Player: Paul Goldschmidt
Rake me through the coals but I’ll always equate “Most Valuable Player” to someone on a winning team. That said, the Diamondbacks are a little better than advertised at 41-42 and only five games out of a Wild Card spot. Arizona remains a mostly forgotten franchise in a media-sense, so it’s easy to overlook Goldschmidt’s first half — 1.092 OPS, 20 homers, 16 steals, 59 runs. 68 walks compared to 69 strikeouts! Bryce Harper rates out higher than Goldschmidt in a few offensive categories, but let’s give the D’backs first baseman some love for his great first half.
Angriest Moment: Jeff Weaver vs. unknown teammates
On May 8 Jeff Weaver threw a shutout vs. the Astros. Afterward teammates pelted him with gum, seeds and a water bottle. He did not look very happy about it.
Spoiler: Jeff Weaver is the killer on this season of True Detective.
Best individual performance: Max Scherzer (June 14-26)
Max Scherzer carried a perfect game for 8 2/3 innings vs. the Pirates in June. His only blemish came via a hit-by-pitch on Jose Tabata. Scherzer still finished with a no-hitter and boasts a 2.12 ERA with a scant 97 hits allowed in 130 innings. Between his one-hitter on June 14 vs. Milwaukee and no-hitter vs. the Pirates he posted back-to-back Game Scores of 100 and 97. Scherzer is only the 12th player to achieve a Game Score of 100 or more and it didn’t even come in the no-no. The next game after the no-hitter Scherzer flirted with matching Johnny Vander Meer’s back-to-back no hitter mark for five innings. Over the three starts Scherzer threw 26 innings, gave up six hits, two earned runs with one walk and 32 strikeouts.
Best Catch: Josh Donaldson vs. Tampa
If Marco Estrada completed his bid for a perfect game vs. the Rays in late June, this catch goes down in the annals of baseball history. Instead Donaldson’s grab helped him set a new record for All Star Game votes. And it’s still a really good catch.
Runner up: Alex Gordon, your American League All Star starter in left, also dove into the stands to make a heroic grab.
Best performance by a future Hall of Famer(*) Coming Back from Suspension: Alex Rodriguez
Left for dead and seemingly a pariah, A-Rod’s put together a nice season — and redemption story. He’s notched his 3,000 hit — a homer off Justin Verlander and passed Willie Mays on the all-time home run list. Of course we’ll have to pretend none of this stuff ever happened after he retires.
Best Gastronomical performance: Terry Francona
The Cleveland manager gave us the best quote of the season, regaling reporters how he recently consumed 17 Popsicles in one sitting. I smell a Ken Burns documentary idea …
Best Moment, Andrew McCutchen in San Diego
McCutchen earned all-time good guy status when he gave his batting gloves to a pair of fans who came to watch him play in San Diego.
“Worst” Use of Social Media: Pablo Sandoval
The erstwhile Kung Fu Panda didn’t endear himself in Boston after admitting he was liking photos on Instagram during a game in June. This massive indiscretion earned him a benching. Odds are if the Red Sox were in first place or even over the .500 mark nobody would have cared all that much.
Best Ejection: Torii Hunter
If you’re going to get run by the umpires, might as well toss your jersey and everything else onto the field.
(Begrudgingly) Best Team Performance, St. Louis Cardinals
Nobody likes the Cardinals, other than their fans, but the franchise knows what it’s doing — so long as it doesn’t involve passwords. St. Louis leads baseball with a 54-30 record and a sparkling 2.62 staff ERA sans No. 1 starter Adam Wainwright. Bully for them.
Weirdest food use: Washington Nationals
When you’re the newest team in the league — technically, yes, the franchise began in 1969 in Montreal but moved to DC in 2005 so why split hairs? — you need to develop your own traditions. This year the Nats decided to celebrate important end-game moments with chocolate syrup. Insert your own jokes.
Best rant: Bryan Price
Suffice to say that Bryan Price set the bar pretty pretty high in April. If anyone tops 77 f-bombs in one sitting, we will salute them.
Best WWE Impersonation: Chris Sale
Chris Sale went on an insane run recently, striking out 10+ batters in eight-straight games. Also insane? The report he tried to storm into the Royals clubhouse in April back when Kansas City was apparently trying to fight everyone in sight. Stick to pitching, dude.
Best Comeback: Albert Pujols
Finally healthy, Pujols is smacking home runs — 26 total and living up, in part, to his huge contract in Los Angeles.
Worst individual performance: Rick Porcello
Rick Porcello, the Red Sox big pitching acquisition in the winter, has the worst ERA (6.08) among qualified pitchers in the American League. Boston signed him to an $80 million contract extension before throwing a pitch for the team.
Best facial hair: Dallas Keuchel
Fear this beard.
Best Non-Story: Kris Bryant
Remember when Scott Boras worked everyone into a tizzy because the Cubs decided to keep Kris Bryant in the minors for two weeks over service time issues? Yeah, me either. Now the focus is on the budding race for National League Rookie of the Year between Bryant and Joc Pederson.
AL Mid-season MVP: Mike Trout
Total yawn, right? Another stalwart season for Trout, who’s never finished worse than second in the actual MVP voting in his three full seasons. If it’s possible for the best all-around player in the game to be underrated, maybe Trout is. Or maybe it’s because he plays in Anaheim. Miguel Cabrera is out until mid-August, so it’s down to Donaldson, Lorenzo Cain, Jason Kipnis or Manny Machado to give Trout some competition for the award this season.
NL Mid-season MVP: Bryce Harper
So yeah, this is what everyone raved about when they hyped up Harper the past five or so years. Harper currently leads baseball in OPS+, slugging and on-base percentage. Over half of his hits have been for extra bases. As Harper himself might say, he’s totally killing it, brah.
AL Mid-season Cy Young: Chris Archer
Cases could be made for Keuchel and Sonny Gray, but my choice here is Chris Archer. The Rays are only 11-7 in his 18 starts, but consider this: in those starts he’s allowed zero earned runs seven times compared to four or more only three times.
NL Mid-season Cy Young: Scherzer
Sincere apologies to both Zach Greinke and Gerrit Cole, but Scherzer is on pace for a season that might make Clayton Kershaw blush. Chocolate sauce for everyone!
Two Second-half predictions:
1. An umpire is going to provoke a player and it’s going to be a total shit show: The relationship between players and umpires is fraying. Something says the incident where the home plate ump charged at Jon Lester isn’t the end, but merely the start of a trend. In most of these case the old axiom of “two wrongs don’t make a right” applies, but increasingly umpires are reacting quickly — such as the Harper ejection in May.
2. Carlos Correa leads the Astros to the playoffs: Not exactly the boldest prediction ever made, but Correa’s been awesome since his call-up and Houston’s rebuilding process is now bearing fruit.