The volume of debate over postseason awards is exhausting, so what is really called for here is the opinion of someone who doesn’t even have a vote on five of them. These are just hypothetical ballots – how I would vote if I had these ballots. I have the NL Rookie of the Year ballot this year, so I won’t discuss that one here, and I just don’t care about the Manager of the Year ballots unless I have to vote for real (which I did once).
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When deciding how I would vote on MVP and Cy Young awards, I start with the rational metrics, looking at Wins Above Replacement totals on both Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference, and adjust from there. At the end of the day, I’m more comfortable with what an objective system built off actual run values says than with what my intuition or eyeballs, which are subject to all manner of biases, might say. If I’m going to diverge from what the best available metrics tell us, I’d better have a very good reason.
On Rookie of the Year, however, I consider more than just in-season performance, since the candidates generally don’t spend the same portion of the year in the majors – something exacerbated now by service-time games – and this shouldn’t just be an award given to the guy who played the most. I also consider a player’s age, since the same performances by two players, one of whom is 20 and one of whom is 28, are not equally impressive or indicative of a player’s future potential, and the sustainability of the player’s production. The point of the Rookie of the Year Award is to highlight the next Mike Trout, not the next Pat Listach or Joe Charbonneau.
AL MVP
| Player | Position | Team |
|---|---|---|
OF | Yankees | |
RHP/DH | Angels | |
2B | Guardians | |
2B | Astros | |
RHP | Astros | |
RHP | White Sox | |
SS | Red Sox | |
3B | Guardians | |
OF | Angels | |
DH | Astros |
Shohei Ohtani’s having another great season, and he’s finally become the pitcher the Angels thought they were getting when they first signed him, but what Aaron Judge is doing this year is historic. His rWAR of 10.6 going into Sunday’s game ranks 27th all-time for a single season; since MLB integrated, it ranks 14th. Nobody has hit 11 rWAR since Barry Bonds in 2002, and before that, no one had done it since Cal Ripken in 1991. Fangraphs has Judge even higher, at 11.2 fWAR, the fourth-highest figure this century and seventh-best since integration, behind six seasons from three guys named Bonds, Williams and Mantle. I wouldn’t fault someone for voting for Ohtani, but Judge’s season is clearly better. I considered Julio Rodríguez for the last spot, but Yordan Alvarez had about as good a year as a DH can have, and his fWAR edge of over a win is too much for me to ignore.
We could talk about the rest of the ballot, but to be fair, it’s a lot less interesting than 1-2. Gimenez headlined my “players I was wrong about” column this year and has cleared 6 WAR in both systems; he’s a huge reason Cleveland beat everyone’s expectations and won the AL Central this year.
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NL MVP
| Player | Position | Team |
|---|---|---|
3B | Cardinals | |
3B | Padres | |
1B | Cardinals | |
RHP | Marlins | |
1B | Dodgers | |
OF | Dodgers | |
C | Phillies | |
LHP | Giants | |
SS | Mets | |
3B | Atlanta |
Pick your poison? Any of the top three would work, and Alcantara has a fairly strong case, but I went with Nolan Arenado because he’s the best defender of the group (+14 Outs Above Average, ahead of +8 for Machado) and was roughly Machado’s equal with the bat, as both had wRC+ figures of 152 on the season. The three players are separated by 0.2 fWAR right now, which is useless for distinguishing between players, while rWAR has Arenado and Goldschmidt both at 7.8 rWAR and Machado down at 6.7 because its defensive measures have him as a below-average fielder on the season (which I just don’t buy, and OAA/UZR don’t support). I found it interesting how the Mets and Atlanta are both roughly 100-win teams but have nobody with a real argument to be top-five on the ballot.
AL Cy Young
| Player | Position | Team |
|---|---|---|
RHP | Astros | |
RHP | White Sox | |
RHP | Angels | |
RHP | Blue Jays | |
RHP | Blue Jays |
I’d love to see Dylan Cease win this, as it would be his first such honor – he’s never even appeared on a Cy Young ballot before – and such a great story of player development and patience. He had an ERA near 6 as a rookie in 2019, started to turn the corner in 2020 (when he was a breakout pick for me, but only sort of did so), improved again in 2021, and this year is his real breakout season. By ERA, and thus by rWAR, he’s been the best pitcher in the AL, with a 2.20 ERA and league-leading 6.3 rWAR , but he’s also leading the AL in walks; and fWAR, which factors out his lower BABIP and high strand rate, has him fifth in the AL. Verlander has made five fewer starts and thrown 14 fewer innings, with a lower ERA (1.80) and FIP (2.57), leading the AL in fWAR and ranking third in rWAR, so an approach that tries to split the proverbial baby gives him the nod. (No actual babies were split in the writing of this column.) Verlander walked guys at less than half the rate that Cease did, and gave up less power, and that’s probably just enough to overcome Cease’s higher strikeout rate. Gausman has been undone by the defense behind him this year, allowing a .362 OBP despite a hard-hit rate that’s better than league average, and that’s why his ERA (3.30) is nearly a run higher than his FIP (2.42), the latter of which actually leads the American League as I’m writing this on Sunday. That gap is also the largest of any qualifying starter in the AL.
NL Cy Young
| Player | Position | Team |
|---|---|---|
RHP | Marlins | |
LHP | Giants | |
RHP | Phillies | |
LHP | Atlanta | |
RHP | Diamondbacks |
Sandy Alcantara leads all pitchers this year with 8.1 rWAR and is third in the NL with 5.7 fWAR, but as of this writing, his most impressive stat is that he’s the only starter to reach 200 innings this year – and he’s at 228, 29 innings ahead of the next-highest total. He’s thrown six complete games, and the rest of the National League has thrown five. That he’s pitched this much and simultaneously been very effective, ranking second in the NL in ERA and sixth in FIP, is reason enough to put him first on the ballot. Carlos Rodón is the NL’s leader in FIP and fWAR, fourth in rWAR, sixth in ERA, a worthy No. 2 finisher. I don’t think there’s another viable contender for the top spot this year, although the three players I had in spots 3-5, as well as Julío Urías and Corbin Burnes, all had ballot-worthy seasons.
AL Rookie of the Year
| Player | Position | Team |
|---|---|---|
OF | Mariners | |
C | Orioles | |
OF | Guardians |
This is a lot closer than the general conversation around the award would have you believe. Just going by WAR, Rodríguez is at 5.1 fWAR/5.7 rWAR in 549 plate appearances, and Adley Rutschman is at 4.9 fWAR/5.0 rWAR in 458 plate appearances. Rodríguez has been the better hitter by wRC+ or OPS+, but Rutschman gets a huge bump from his defense and positional value. I couldn’t argue with anyone who wanted to switch the order of the top two, but they should be the top two on every ballot. Steven Kwan is the best of the rest, even without much value from defense or position, in part because he’s been a well above-average hitter (125 wRC+), and actually has a higher rWAR than Rutschman — although in that case, I’d still give the nod to the catcher who was more productive in less playing time. You could make some argument for Jeremy Peña, although his .285 OBP (and just .258 in the second half) drives down his value below that of Kwan even with the huge defensive/positional edge he gets as a plus defender at short; Peña’s wRC+ is down to 97, making him just slightly below-average on offense.
(Photo of Justin Verlander: Troy Taormina / USA Today Sports)
