Nationals Arm Race

Another season, another MVP runner-up for Trout at the behest of another player? PHoto via redsox life

Hi there.  Its time to write about the “silly season” of baseball.   Its my annual awards predictor piece.

Here’s my predictions for how the awards will go.  Important note: This is not necessarily how I believe the awards should go, it is how I think the current electorate will vote …  though I do tend to believe that the MVP award in particular is not just about naming the WAR leader in the league.  And I also tend to favor giving a pitcher the Cy Young and a non-pitcher the MVP.  But feel free to discuss in the comments if you think i’m wrong.  I can be argumentative either way 🙂

How do I think the voting will go?

• AL MVP: Betts
• NL MVP: Yelich
• AL Cy Young: Snell
• NL Cy Young: Scherzer, changed mind to deGrom after reading the tea leaves
• AL Rookie: Ohtani
• NL Rookie: Acuna
• AL Manager: Melvin (Oakland)
• NL Manager: Snitker (Atlanta)

Discussion/Reasoning

• AL MVP: Mookie Betts is the best player on the best team, always a good place to start with MVP thoughts.  Yes, once again Mike Trout is having a phenomenal year, and once again he toils on the West Coast and for a team out of the playoff race.  I’m eternally sympathetic to those who think MVP should not include team performance … and i’m perennially finding myself agreeing with “old school” sentiments that ask a simple question; how can you be the most valuable player when your team isn’t a factor for most of the year.   Also in the mix would be Betts’ teammate J.D. Ramirez, the Oakland phenomenon Matt Chapman, Houston WAR leader Alex Bregman, and Cleveland stars Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor.  My personal hedge statement here: I’d be rather surprised if Betts did not win.
• NL MVP: Christian Yelich has really exploded late in the season to put his name into this discussion.  But the question may end up being this: is this one of those weird years where no dominant, obvious position player candidate steps up and thus the award goes to a pitcher?  I’d suggest this might be possible … except that the top 3-4 pitching candidates all play for non-playoff teams.  And that doesn’t match the narrative.  I’m going to go with Yelich, then the top NL pitchers right behind him, with perhaps Javier Baez,  Nolan Arenado and Freddie Freeman getting some votes as their respective “best player on a playoff team” status.  Coincidentally … did you know that Anthony Rendon is 2nd in the NL in fWAR behind Yelich?  I certainly didn’t.  Personal Hedge statement: I’d still be shocked if a pitcher for a non-playoff team won here, and would find it hard to vote for one of these other position players mentioned.
• AL Cy Young: Blake Snell.   This might be an interesting case of whether you’re wow’d by conventional stats or not.  Snell has a sub 2.00 ERA, but he’s doing it thanks to a ridiculously low BABIP, which drags down is fWAR and puts him well down the league leader list.  Meanwhile in bWAR … he’s the top AL pitcher, ahead of his competition for this award.  I think the fact that he’s put up the numbers that he has playing in the AL East and having fully 25% of his starts this year come against Boston and the Yankees is pretty amazing.  I’d vote Snell.  Also in the mix here: Verlander, Cole, Sale, Kluber, Bauer.  Personal Hedge: wouldn’t be surprised if this went to Verlander or Sale instead.
• NL Cy Young.  Max Scherzer  Yes i’m convinced that his broaching the 300k mark put him over the top, despite the unbelievable season that Jacob deGrom had.  I could be wrong; maybe the electorate has now advanced to the point where they recognize that a guy who finished 10-9 was indeed the best pitcher of the year.  We’ll see.  Either way, I sense these guys go 1-2.  After them, look for Aaron Nola Kyle Freeland, and Patrick Corbin.  Personal Hedge: deGrom is getting enough “holy cow look at this season” buzz that it wouldn’t really surprise me if he won.  And he’d be completely deserving.  Btw, as the off-season narratives grew, I became less and less convinced I had this one right.  Writing this ahead of the awards, I think deGrom wins.
• AL Rookie: Shohei Ohtani: it shouldn’t be close honestly.  He had a 4.0 WAR season, clubbing more than 20 homers and looking pretty darn solid on the mound before the inevitable elbow injury derailed his season and cost him 60 games or so.   Only Gleybar Torres is close; this should be a unanimous vote and I hope Ohtani comes back from injury sooner than later.  Personal Hedge: a vote against Ohtani is really a bad one honestly.
• NL Rookie: Ronald Acuna; its Acuna or Juan Soto, both of whom had historic seasons at a young age.   Acuna’s monster September pushes him over the top, and his stat line for the season is just slightly better than Soto’s, despite the missed time.  By narrative, Soto would have this hands-down though; he advanced from Low-A to putting up a 4-win season as a 19yr old, has had perhaps the 2nd or 3rd best teen-aged season in the long history of our game, and might have been in the MVP race had the Nats won the division.  Hedge: I begrudgingly have to admit that Acuna is slightly better, and rookie status isn’t given context (ie, its not part of the equation that Soto started the year in Low-A and Acuna was in AAA and a known #1 overall prospect).
• AL Manager: hard not to say that Bob Melvin‘s performance taking an expected also-ran to nearly 100 wins isn’t the Mgr of the year.  He’s on his like 18th starter of the year, he’s winning with a bunch of non-prospects, he’s turned trash into treasure (Blake Treinen).
• NL Manager: Brian Snitker, who took the NL east by 8 games in a complete surprise based on nearly every pundit’s pre-season predictions.  No other NL playoff team was really this big of a “surprise” so he gets it.

Actual Award Results added as they were awarded (updated post-publishing).  Finalists announced 11/4/18.

• AL MVP: Betts easily 28 of 30 1st place votes.
• NL MVP: Yelich nearly unanimously; deGrom got one 1st place vote.
• AL Cy Young: Snell squeaked by Verlander with 17 of 30 first place votes to win.
• NL Cy Young: deGrom nearly unanimously, getting 29/30 first place votes.
• AL Rookie: Ohtani in a landslide, getting 25 of 30 1st place votes (Andujar got the other 5).
• NL Rookie: Acuna, in a landslide, getting 27 of 30 first place votes.
• AL Manager: Melvin getting 18 of 30 1st place votes.
• NL Manager: Snitker, getting 17 of 30 1st place votes.

My prediction results: 7 for 8 (missed on my initial deGrom prediction).

Links to other awards that I didn’t predict this year (again, updated post-publishing as they’re announced)

• Roberto Clemente Award: Yadier Molina
• Hank Aaron Award: J.D. Martinez in the AL, Christian Yelich in the NL.
• Gold Gloves: finalists named on 10/25/18 and include just one National: Anthony Rendon.  Actual awards named 11/4/18.
• Relievers of the Year: Edwin Diaz in the AL, Josh Hader (awful tweets and all) in the NL.
• Fielding Bhttps://www.billjamesonline.com/2018_fielding_bible_awards/ible:
• MLB Executive of the Year: Billy Beane in the inaugural year of this award.
• Silver Sluggers: No Nats named this year, and no real competitors for the award honestly.
• Wilson Defensive Player of the Year:
• Comeback Players of the Year: Michael Brantley and Matt Kemp.
• BA Executive of the Year:
• Sporting News Executive of the Year:
• Edgar Martinez DH of the Year:
• J.G. Taylor Spink Reporter of the year (named at Winter Meetings): Jayson Stark for 2019.

Other links to awards worth noting

• MLB.com Players/Pitchers/Rookies of the Month.
• Players choice awards: The players choice awards had some interesting choices.  Miguel Andujar and Acuna for Rookies, Snell and deGrom Pitchers of the year, Curtis Granderson the “Marvin Miller” man of the year, etc.
• Esurance MLB Awards:

Desmond was one of just three draft-pick compensation penalties of the FA signing period this year. Photo Drew Kinback/Natsnq.com

When Mark Trumbo sulked back to Baltimore to take his massively under-market deal, he became the last Qualifying Offer (QO) -attached player to sign, meaning the 2017 draft order is now finalized.

This year, only three 1st round picks were forfeited due to QO-attached players:

• Colorado’s 11th overall, forfeited inexplicably to sign Ian Desmond to a 5yr/$70M deal purportedly to play a position (1B) he’s never played before in a market that already had an abundance of 1B-only sluggers.
• St. Louis’s 19th overall, forfeited to sign the long-rumored Dexter Fowler to man CF for them for the next 5 years.
• Cleveland’s 27th overall, forfeited to sign slugger Edwin Encarnation and drastically improve upon the team that made it into extra innings in the 7th game of the World Series despite missing two of their three best starters in the playoffs.

This year’s signing period stands in stark comparison to 2016’s, when teams gave up no less than seven first round picks (and 11 overall) to sign players.  A weaker class, a larger number of teams already punting on the new season, plus knowledge that the new CBA lowers the draft-pick penalty may have had teams stay on the sidelines this off-season.

So, all that being said, here’s the new updated draft order for this June’s draft.   Here’s the first round and supplemental picks:

Note: i’ll do a separate post about the QO-attached players and their disposition, an annual tradition, later on.  Just three of the original 10 QO-issued players left their teams this year.  The last 6 picks are the Competitive Balance picks, which are annually a joke; Miami plays in a $2.4B stadium, Oakland resides in the 11th largest market in the country.

Here’s the 2nd round and supplementals:

Only one change in the 2nd round this year; Pittsburgh gets the 42nd pick for failing to sign its 41st overall pick last year (LHP Nick Lodolo, who is now pitching for TCU and makes TCU a very strong team for one who just made the CWS).

Lastly, here’s round three and onwards: just add 30 to each of the draft slots to get the rest of the overall picks:

Some overall draft thoughts:

• Pittsburgh will have the 12th, 42nd, 50th and 73rd picks in the first two rounds.
• Interestingly, the three teams that gave up 1st rounders all have supplemental 2nd round picks, probably factoring into their willingness to give up the 1st rounder.
• The three teams that picked up extra 1st round picks (Toronto, Texas, Chicago) are all 2016 playoff teams.  I think the impact of the QO draft pick compensation system is now so far away from what it intended that it borders on the ridiculous.
• Minnesota picks 1st, 35th, 37th and 76th.  It’ll be interesting to see what they do with the 1st overall pick, whether they go the safe route and pick someone like Jeren Kendall from Vanderbilt or whether they take one of the huge upside prep players near the top of draft boards right now (Hunter Greene or Jordan Adell).  Its pretty early for draft coverage though; check back in a few months for this.
• Despite winning the world series, the Cubs will pick 27th, 30th and then 67th.  Three picks in the top 70 for the WS champion; the rich get richer.

Post-publishing note: MLB handed down the punishment in the hacking scandal and it costs St. Louis their first two picks; they now go to Houston.  This changes the above draft order by giving St. Louis’ 56th and 75th pick to Houston.  So Houston now owns the #15, #53, #56, #75 and 91st overall picks in this draft while St. Louis does not draft until the 3rd round, #94 overall.

Lastly, lets talk about the impact for the Nats and their 2017 draft:

• We moved up three spots in the 1st round; now we pick 25th overall.
• We then pick 65th and 103th.
• After that, we pick 133rd and in 30 pick increments afterwards.  So 163rd, 193rd, 223rd, etc.

25th overall is still a good spot.  Here’s the 25th overall picks from the last few drafts (courtesy as always of baseball-reference.com)

• 2016: Eric Lauer, a solid LHP from Kent State who had a 1.44 ERA in 7 starts in the Northwoods league for his pro debut.
• 2015: D.J. Stewart, a slugger from Florida State who posted an .837 OPS in the Carolina League this year.
• 2014: Matt Chapman, a SS/3B from Cal State Fullerton who hit 36 homers between AA and AAA this year.
• 2013: Christian Arroyo, a prep SS who hit .274 as a 21yr old playing full time in AA this year.
• 2012: Richie Shaffer, a utility guy with some pop who has been up and down for Tampa Bay the last two years between MLB and AAA.
• 2011: Joe Ross, who I think we’re all pretty high on even given his arm issues from last year.
• 2010: Zack Cox, a solid hitting 3B who shot up St. Louis’ system and was flipped to Miami, where his career stalled at the AAA level
• 2009: Mike Trout.  Yeah; Mike Trout was “only” the 25th overall pick.  There’s 24 teams who are kicking themselves for the next 20 years.
• 2008: Christian Friedrich, who started all last year for San Diego but may be destined for the bullpen.
• 2007: Aaron Poreda, who struggled in the bullpen for Texas and has pitched in Japan for the last two years.

So, generally there seems to be solid college players at the 25th overall, with some upside if you gamble on a prep kid.  That’s probably what we’re looking at in that range come June.