MLB - NEWS & NOTES

Mauer's award accolades really help his HOF case as he achieve things many players, let alone catchers, never did. if he gets in, that could be a strong factor.

 

Acuna and Ohtani win ROY

 

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/...errated-career-should-stand-the-test-of-time/

one problem with this article about mauer and the HOF...the HOF is based on peak years, it's a career. if it was based on peak years Dale Murphy and Roger Maris would be in the HOF too.

as a catcher, Mauer has a lot of accolades other catchers don't have. could wait a few years, but he may get the call one day.

 

https://sports.yahoo.com/yankees-fa...-miguel-andujar-al-rookie-year-065239328.html


seems like people (Yankees fans) are pissed Ohtani won considering the stats of Andujar and the missed time and injuries of Ohtani. Andujar had the better hitting season, so i guess Ohtani won it bc he pitches too?

 

Meh. Personally I’d’ve voted for Torres ahead of Andujar, anyway. Ohtani was a deserving winner over both.

 

Brian Snitker, Bob Melvin win 2018 Manager of the Year Awards...

Snitker, 63, is in his third season as the Braves’ manager. In 2018, he led the Braves to a 90-72 first-place finish, sending the team to the postseason for the first time since 2013. The Braves lost in four games to the Dodgers.

Snitker received 17 of 30 first-place votes. Brewers manager Craig Counsell finished in second place followed by the Rockies’ Bud Black, the Cardinals’ Mike Shildt, the Cubs’ Joe Maddon, and Dave Roberts of the Dodgers.

The Braves named Snitker the interim manager on May 17, 2016 after firing Fredi González. The organization went into a rebuilding mode and wasn’t expected to seriously compete in 2018, but a breakout season from NL Rookie of the Year Ronald Acuña Jr. and Mike Foltynewicz, as well as great seasons from Freddie Freeman, Nick Markakis, Arodys Vizcaino, and Aníbal Sánchez — among others — helped the Braves challenge in the NL East ahead of schedule.

Last month, we learned that Snitker almost quit his job with the Braves due to a sour relationship with former GM John Coppolella. Coppolella later resigned as a result of his role in violating international signing rules. Freeman and current GM Alex Anthopoulos went on record giving Snitker a huge vote of confidence.

Melvin, 57, is now a three-time Manager of the Year Award winner, having previously won in 2007 with the Diamondbacks and in 2012 with the A’s. In 2018, he saw a 22-win turnaround. Unfortunately for the A’s, their 97-win season wasn’t good enough while playing in the same division as the Astros, who won 103 games.

Melvin received 18 of 30 first-place votes. Red Sox manager Alex Cora finished in second place, followed by Kevin Cash of the Rays, A.J. Hinch of the Astros, and Aaron Boone of the Yankees. (Hardball Talk)

 

only bc he pitched. his hitting stats were not even close to Andujar. Tack on the injuries and his pitching was more like a relievers. was he really that good ? he missed a lot of time. like the one person from yahoo sports said "the novelty of him won the award."

 

No not only because he pitched, though obviously that helps...the missed time is really the only knock against Ohtani...when he did hit, he was a better hitter than Andujar (around 50% better than league average compared to around 30% for Andujar). The only hitting stat they weren't close on was RBI, and that's as attributable to having a much better lineup around him than Ohtani did as the missed time. Ohtani's better OBP and SLG easily make up for that difference. Now, after all that, when you also add in the fact that Ohtani pitched 50 pretty effective innings and Andujar was a butcher with the glove, and I don't think it's particularly close at all.

Hell if anyone has a bitch about being overlooked in this thing, it should be Joey Wendle.

 

so fielding has something to do with the voting ? picking at anything now. Ohtani played OF a few games and DH didn't he?

doesn't playing in half a season help your OBP and SLG as it's less games to bring your stats down ? I'm not a math guy, so i don't know if plate appearances help or hurt you ?

 

I mean yeah shouldn't all performance be counted? You want to ignore Ohtani's pitching and Andujar's fielding fine, but to me they're part of the equation and would help tip the scales if you decided they were even as hitters (giving Andujar credit for better counting stats and Ohtani for better rate stats), and Ohtani clearly helped his team on the mound and Andujar clearly hurt his in the field.

As far as OBP and SLG going down with more PA's, no, they're rate stats, so once you've compiled a statistically meaningful sample size (as Ohtani did with well over 300 PA's), those percentages should be fairly reliable indicators of how you should perform over a larger sample. IOW, your expectation would be that Ohtani still would've performed at the same level in his next 300 PA's, as well, and it's just as likely that they could go up as down.

 

i didn't know fielding was taken into considering for voting u dog. that's all i was trying to say there.

everyone knew ohtani was the next big thing in baseball. andujar was barely in AAA and wasn't expected to do much this year, let alone make a major dent in their lineup. i read 2 articles comparing ohtani's pitching to babe ruth. when you look at the stats, he wasn't close to ruth at all. the comparison is silly.

i get it ohtani is a rare breed who did very well this year when he played. in most years andujar would win in a walk as his stats were that good.

 

the big awards still left. should be easy though as betts, yelich, degrom and snell should win the cy and mvps.

 

Fair enough. Having seen the Yanks and Rays a lot this year, even taking Ohtani out of the equation I still would've only had Andujar third if I were voting. And that's not a knock on him, he had a good year and was certainly deserving of being in the conversation for the award. I just think the other guys were clearly better all around players. I don't know what the BBWAA voters consider (shit Vince Coleman won ROY for just stealing a ton of bases so who knows what they ever think about lol), but to me a player's entire contribution should be considered.

 

if that is the case then Ohtani not playing the field should be considered as well. The BBWAA is not the perfect group of people who vote that's for sure. Vince Coleman? Wow. haha.

Changing gears U Dog-I am always interested in the MLB HOF announcement in mid-January ! I can't believe it's almost here. Mariano Rivera is a lock. Will the late Roy Halladay get in on his first ballot attempt. Many writers are split on Doc. His body of work is really a 10 year stretch where is was very dominant. Like Joe Mauer, is a period of time ENOUGH to get you in the HOF ? We shall see in January 2019.

 

Well, except he wasn't actively hurting his team by not playing in the field. If he had played some innings in the OF and been as much of a negative as Andujar was at 3B, then I'd agree with your point. Like I said, can only judge them by what their total contribution was.

 

Halladay's a stronger candidate than Mauer, IMO. He won a Cy in both leagues, he was arguably the best pitcher in his league at least 4 times. Made more AS teams. And he has an excellent, if limited, post-season resume. I think a few things will work against him...one, he's well short of the typical HOF pitcher milestones (barely 200 wins and well short of 3000 K's), two he had a rapid decline, going from elite to medicore to dreadful to out of the game within three years, and thirdly I'm unsure what the impact of his untimely death will be...I could see some voters being sympathetic to him passing so young, with other toolbags holding it against him that he was intoxicated when he crashed his plane. I'm not knocking him personally for any of those things...just potential pitfalls with the voters I see for him. I haven't looked at the full ballot yet but I'm betting he'd be one of my ten this year if I had a vote. But I suspect he might get stuck in that 50-60% range where Mussina and Schilling have been.

Mo is a lead pipe lock. He should challenge Junior's vote % record.

I suspect Edgar Martinez might get over the hump in his last try. He was over 70% last year, and only one person has ever been over 70 and not gotten in the next year. He's the only other one with a shot this year, IMO.

 

i think Mo, Edgar and Mussina get the call. Schiling keeps opening his mouth and digging his own grave. That shouldn't hurt his HOF merits, but his mouth is killing him and his HOF chances.

Doc is a tough call. 2 Cy Youngs, AS Games, a Perfect game and the second only Post-Season No hitter in his playoff debut is nothing to sneeze at. Pedro Martinez had over 200 wins, but not over 220 and he was a lock as he should've been. Doc also played in the toughest Division as well and held his own.

You said intoxicated? Sadly his injuries caused him a lot of pain and he took medication for it. on the day of his death too much damn medication for it. to me how he died has nothing to do with his HOF merits. I grew up loving Kirby Puckett. I think he got in due to his premature retiring from the game due to his eye injury. then what happens? you find out he was a crumb who was negligent to his wife and was a real asshole. that doesn't take away from his HOF merits anymore than Doc dying due to overdosing himself on medication.

 

No disagreement here,..I said I would vote for him...I only brought it up with regards to the likelihood of the BBWAAsshats voting for him, because they have a rich history of voting or not voting for people for things unrelated to how good people were at baseball.

And I think it could be just as likely that some people that weren't going to vote for him now will due to him dying tragically at a young age, as it is that some people that would've voted for him now won't because they want to stake a claim to some moral high ground about not voting for someone who flew an aircraft under the influence. I'm not sure at all which way the impact on his voting is going to go, just saying that I think it could be a factor.

 

agreed. it will be interesting to see the HOF ballot results in January.

 

Blake Snell, Jacob deGrom win 2018 Cy Young Awards...

The 2018 Cy Young Award results are in. Your winners are Blake Snell of the Rays in the American League and Jacob deGrom of the Mets in the National League.

Snell, 25, won a major league-best 21 games with only five losses and posted an AL-best 1.89 ERA with 221 strikeouts and 64 walks in 180 2/3 innings. The lefty is the first member of the Rays to win the Cy Young Award since David Price in 2012. Snell and Price are the only Cy Young winners in Rays history.

Snell received 17 first-place votes and narrowly finished ahead of Astros ace Justin Verlander in total points with 169. Verlander had 13 first-place votes and 154 total points. Indians ace Corey Kluber finished a distant third with 71 points. Also receiving votes were Chris Sale of the Red Sox, Gerrit Cole of the Astros, Trevor Bauer of the Indians, Blake Treinen of the Athletics, Edwin Díaz of the Mariners, and Luis Severino of the Yankees.

The 2018 AL Cy Young Award debate was anything but one-sided. While Snell had the ERA edge over the competition, Verlander pitched about 35 more innings and led the league with 290 strikeouts. Interestingly, neither writer from the Tampa Bay chapter voted for Verlander higher than third place. Mark Didtler, an AP freelancer, had Verlander third while Bill Madden of the New York Daily News had Verlander in fourth place behind Blake Treinen. If a chapter doesn’t have enough members, a member from another chapter will represent that city. Madden was a replacement voter.

For the first time since 2015, Max Scherzer is not the NL Cy Young Award winner. As expected, deGrom took home the hardware despite a 10-9 record, showing that the BBWAA electorate has, generally, gotten with the times by not regarding win-loss records as highly as they used to. deGrom put up a historically great and best-in-baseball 1.70 ERA along with 269 strikeouts and 46 walks over 217 innings. deGrom and Zack Greinke (1.66 in 2015) are the only pitchers to post a 1.70 ERA or lower dating back to 1996. It had only been done four other times since 1969: by Greg Maddux twice (1994-95), Dwight Gooden (1985), and Nolan Ryan (1981).

deGrom almost won the award unanimously, receiving 29 of 30 first-place votes with 207 total points. Scherzer got the other first-place vote with 123 total points. The Phillies’ Aaron Nola finished in third place with 86 points. Also receiving votes were Kyle Freeland of the Rockies, Patrick Corbin of the Diamondbacks, Miles Mikolas of the Cardinals, Josh Hader of the Brewers, Mike Foltynewicz of the Braves, and Jon Lester of the Cubs.

deGrom is the first Met to win the Cy Young Award since R.A. Dickey in 2012. Other Cy Young winners from the Mets include Dwight Gooden (1985), and Tom Seaver (1969, ’73, ’75).
(Hardball Talk)