Predictions for MVP

I'm still formulating my opinion of both American and National League Cy Young award winners so for now I'll post my predictions for American and National League MVP. Let me start with the senior circuit first.


As with National League Manager of the year, I think this one is a no-brainer. Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals will win his 3rd MVP award (2005, 2008). Pujols once again showed how dominating he can be by batting .327 with 47hrs and 135rbi. He also scored 124 runs, hit 45 doubles, 1 triple and working 159 walks (44 intentional) while only striking out 64 times, which to me is astonishing that a power hitter of Pujols caliber only strikes out approximately 60 times a year. Pujols also stole 16 bases while only being caught 4 times. Pujols also lead the league with an OPS of 1.101 (.658 SLG% and .443 OBP%). Pujols won his 5th National League Silver Slugger and second consecutive award for a 1st baseman. Defensively he was rock solid at 1st base, though his error total of 13 was an increase from last years total of 6 errors.

A distant second place will be Hanley Ramirez of the Florida Marlins. Ramirez led the league with a .342 batting average while hitting 24hrs and 104rbi. He scored 101 runs, hit 42 doubles, 1 triple, stole 27 bases and walked 75 times (14 intentional). Ramirez struck out 101 times. Ramirez won the NL Silver Slugger for a Shortstop for the 2nd consecutive year. Defensively, Ramirez was solid at short making only 10 errors.

Though the Marlins had a surprising year finishing 87-75 (.537) for 2nd place in the NL East, 6 games behind the National League Champion Philadelphia Phillies, the St. Louis Cardinals do not make the playoffs without Pujols. Pujols carried the team offensively until the Cardinals acquired Matt Holliday in a mid-season trade with the Oakland A's. On to the American League.

The race for American League MVP is tighter since there are more candidates for the award. Out of the top four candidates of Joe Mauer, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira and Kendry Morales, I believe the winner will be Joe Mauer of the Minnesota Twins.

Mauer led the league with a .365 batting average while hitting career highs of 28hrs and 96rbi. Mauer scored 94 runs, hit 30 doubles, 1 triple, walking 90 times (14 intentional) while striking out 63 times earning the American League Silver Slugger for a Catcher for the 2nd consecutive year. Mauer led the American League with an OPS of 1.031 (.587 SLG% and .444 OBP%) and was only second to Albert Pujols in the entire league. Defensively, Mauer threw out 26% of potential base stealers (19 of 54) while committing only 3 errors and 9 passed balls winning the American League Gold Glove for catchers for the 2nd consecutive year.

Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees batted .334 with 18hrs and 66rbi. Jeter scored 107 runs, hit 27 doubles, 1 triple, stealing 30 bases and walking 76 times (4 intentional) while striking out 90 times. Jeter earned his 4th consecutive American League Silver Slugger award for a shortstop. Defensively, Jeter had a career year at short committing only 8 errors (down from 12 in 2008 and 18 in 2007) in 150 games earning his 4th American League Gold Glove award (2004, 2005, 2006).

Mark Teixeira also of the New York Yankees batted .292 with a league leading 39hrs (tied with Carlos Peña of the Tampa Bay Rays) and 122rbi. Teixeira scored 103 runs, hit 43 doubles, 3 triples and walking 90 times (9 intentional) while striking out 114 times earning his 3rd American League Silver Slugger (2004, 2005). Defensively, committed 4 errors in 150 games at 1st base for the Yankees earning his 3rd American League Gold Glove award (2004, 2005). Teixeira's defensive prowess added stability to a position that was lacking in the last number of years for the Yankees.

The dark horse in the American League race for MVP is Kendry Morales of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Morales was initially seen as a unknown replacement for Mark Teixeira (who signed with the Yankees in the offseason). What the Angels recieved was a future superstar who more than filled Texiera's shoes. In his first full time season in the league, Morales batted career highs of .306, 34hrs and 108rbi. Morales scored 86 runs, hit 43 doubles, 2 triples and walking 56 times (10 intentional) while striking out 117 times. Defensively, Morales committed 8 errors 152 games at 1st base. Morales more than adequately replaced Teixeira in both the lineup and field for the Angels.

Mauer was able to amass career highs while missing the first 5 weeks of the season playing the most demanding position in baseball while playing for a team that year in and year out is mostly devoid of superstar talent (compared to the Yankees, Red Sox, and Angels) and adeptly manages a young pitching staff which with a different catcher may not succeed. Mauer also filled the void in the lineup left by the injury to Justin Morneau with three weeks remaining in the season leading the Twins to a 17-4 record to end the season. Even more amazing was that the Twins were coming back from three games down with four to play to force a division tie a dramatic 1 game playoff against the Detroit Tigers to win the AL Central title. Though Jeter and Teixeira were pivotal parts of the World Champion Yankees, Jeter is hindered by having tremendous talent on both the offensive and defensive side of the field. Teixeira on the other hand, had a very slow start adapting to a new enviornment playing in New York and not having the offensive back-up in the lineup until Alex Rodriguez returned from hip surgery in May. With Rodriguez's return, Teixeira saw better pitches and started to produce. Morales shows that he is a superstar in the making and will only get better in a lineup where he will become more prominent with the impeding free agency departure of Vladimir Guerrero. In the end, though Jeter is the sentimental favorite to win his 1st MVP, Mauer will win the award. We'll see who wins after Tuesday the 24th of November.

For more information on these awards and others, please check out the following link: 2009 MLB Awards on MLB.com Any suggestions and comments are always welcome. So feel free to add to this and any other blog posts.

2009 Managers of the Year

So all the major baseball awards (aside from the Most Valuable Player) have been given out. I'll focus in on the American and National League Manager of the Year awards. Mike Scioscia of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Jim Tracy of the Colorado Rockies have won the AL and NL managers of the year awards respectively. Let me first cover the AL vote.

Scioscia won the award with a total of 106 points (15 1st place votes, 10 2nd place and 1 3rd place). Following Scioscia in the voting was Ron Gardenhire of the Minnesota Twins with 72 points and Joe Girardi of the New York Yankees with 34 points. Though the Angels finished 1st in the AL West and dealt with adverity with the death of Nick Adenhart I don't believe that he should have won the award. Allow me to address Joe Girardi.

As a Yankees fan I believe that Girardi had as much right to win the award as anyone else. But he suffers (as does his ace pitcher CC Sabathia which I will discuss later) from the expectations that the Yankees have throughout the league. How can a manager like Joe Girardi with the talent that he has at his disposal not succeed though we all know that having massive amounts of talent on your team doesn't guarantee success. Instead of celebrating the fact that the Yankees won 103 games and had the best record in the league (103-59 .636), it works negatively to Girardi's position as the Yankees should have done it. I guess that's what comes with managing the Yankees. So who do I believe should have won the award? Ron Gardenhire!

I believe that Scioscia should be held to the same standard as Joe Girardi since his team has talent comparable to both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. Aside from losing both Francisco Rodriguez and Mark Texiera in the offseason, both players were suitably replaced by Brian Fuentes, Kendry Morales and Bobby Abreu. Scioscia's team was virtually stocked with all of their superstars for the entire season. This is not the case with the perennial 2nd place finisher Gardenhire.

Gardenhire has now finished 2nd in the AL manager of the year voting 5 times. This season was even more impressive since the team only has 3 superstars in Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau and Joe Nathan and Morneau was lost to the team with 3 weeks left. With the team being behind 5.5 games in the standings with 21 games remaining the team went 17-4. Even more amazing was that the Twins were coming back from three games down with four to play to force a division tie and a dramatic 1 game playoff against the Detroit Tigers to win the AL Central title for the 5th time in the last 8 seasons. I guess Gardenhire needs to have the Twins win a World Series to finally win the award.

Now on to the NL Manager of the Year vote. To me this one was a no-brainer. Jim Tracy of the Colorado Rockies won the award with a total of 151 points (29 1st place votes, 2 2nd place). Tony Larussa of the St. Louis Cardinals placed 2nd with 55 points and Joe Torre of the Los Angeles Dodgers placed 3rd with 33 points. when Tracy was hired as manager of the Colorado Rockies after the firing of Clint Hurdle on May 29 with the team playing at a record of 18-28. After that point the team played to a record of 74-42 (.638 winning percentage) finishing with a franchise best 92-70 (.568 winning percentage) and capturing the NL Wild Card.

For more information on these awards and others, please check out the following link: 2009 MLB Awards on MLB.com Please feel free to comment with your agreement/disagreement. Maybe you believe someone else should have gotten consideration. Let me know, I'd like to hear about it. In my next post, I'll cover the AL and NL Cy Young Awards winners and I'll give my prediction for the MVP awards.

Here is Baseballism

Well, since the 2009 Baseball season is 15 days old and I'm seriously in need to have some baseball related conversation here is Baseballism. I'm going to try to touch on some current baseball news and issues though I may stray off the beaten path. So bear with me, comment if you like and enjoy the ride.

The Greatest Pitching Duel...Ever (In my opinion)

On the 30th Anniversary of Carl Hubbell's amazing 18 inning 1-0 shutout of the St. Louis Cardinals, the greatest pitching duel for the modern age was held in San Francisco. On July 2, 1963, the Milwaukee Braves faced the San Francisco Giants. On the mound for the Milwaukee Braves was their long time ace Warren Spahn (363-245 3.09 ERA). Taking the ball for the San Francisco Giants was their ace, "The Dominican Dandy" Juan Marichal (243-142 2.89 ERA).



The game lasted a total of 4 hours and 10 minutes and was a marathon shutout of 16 innings with both starters pitching complete games. The game ended 1-0 due to a game winning home run by Willie Mays (Spahn pitched 15.1 innings, having given up the game winning hit in the bottom of the 16th). Both Spahn and Marichal matched each other with keeping the the opposing team to nearly the same amount of hits (9-8 in favor of Marichal) and both teams left 11 men on base. Both pitchers combined for 428 pitches (227 for Spahn and 201 for Marichal). Marichal struck out 10 while walking 4, Spahn walked only 1 (an intentional walk to Mays in the 14th and was his first walk in 31.2 innings) and struck out 2 but helped his own cause by doubling in the 7th inning, all at the age of 42.

In an era of forced pitched counts and 6 inning starters, its amazing to think that not only one starter would pitch 15 plus shutout innings, but both starters matched each other with the ending being decided on one pitch. Arguably the best left handed starter dueled with the greatest Latino starter of all time in a game for the ages. As I said, amazing. To see the box score (printed July 4, 1963 in the New York Times) click the image to the right.

Latino Pitching Dominance in the All-Star Game

Coming off Mariano Rivera’s record setting 4th save the recent All-Star game, I was thinking about which Latino pitchers have had dominating performances during the Mid-Summer Classic. A few come readily to mind.

1984 Fernando-Mania strikes out the AL in San Francisco

Fernando Valenzuela teams with Dwight Gooden of the Mets to strike out 6 consecutive hitters on the 50th anniversary of Carl Hubble’s amazing 5 consecutive All-Star Game strikeouts. Similar to Hubble, Valenzuela strikes out 3 future Hall of Famers: Dave Winfield, Reggie Jackson and George Brett (Hubble struck out Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Al Simmons and Joe Cronin).


1999 Pedro Welcomes the NL to Boston

Pedro Martinez starts the All-Star game in Boston during his record setting second Cy-Young Award winning season (Pedro won a total of three Cy-Young awards in different leagues having first won the award in Montreal in 1997 and later in 1999 and 2000 in Boston). Similar to Valenzuela, Pedro strikes out the side in the first and the next batter in the second. His victims were Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire earning him the victory and All-Star game MVP honors.

And Last but not least….

Juan Marichal’s career as an All-Star for the San Francisco Giants

Juan Marichal pitched in the era of dominant National League pitching. Some of his NL contemporaries were Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Don Drysdale, Steve Carlton, Dock Ellis, Jim Bunning, Gaylord Perry among others. His stats in the All-Star games were as follows:

Juan Marichal’s Career All-Star Game Statistics

Year	G/S	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	W	L	ERA
1962	2/0	4.0	2	2	1	1	2	1	0	2.25
1963	1/0	1.0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0.00
1965	1/1	3.0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.00
1966	1/0	3.0	3	0	0	0	2	0	0	0.00
1967	1/1	3.0	1	0	0	0	3	0	0	0.00
1968	1/1	2.0	1	0	0	0	3	0	0	0.00
1971	1/1	1.0	2	0	0	1	1	0	0	0.00
Total	8/2	18.0	7	2	1	2	12	2	0	0.50

In eight All-Star Games (1958-1962 had 2 All-Star Games per year), Marichal started two games and won two while losing none. He had a total of twelve strikeouts to two walks and have up only seven hits and two runs in eighteen total innings pitched. Opposing hitters had a combined .117 batting average against and a .145 on base percentage against Marichal. Just to put it in perspective, some of the players Marichal faced in these games were Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Yogi Berra, Elston Howard, Brooks Robinson, Harmon Killibrew, Tony Oliva, Al Kaline, George Scott, Frank Robinson, Rod Carew, Carl Yastremski, Rico Petrocelli, Frank Howard and Bobby Murcer.

Any other suggestions for dominating Latino Pitching performances in the All-Star game?

Latino Brother Combinations in MLB

Keeping with the theme of the last post, this time I've decided to list the brother combinations of Latino players in MLB. Here's the list that I've come up with:

Jose and Merito Acosta
Sandy Jr. and Roberto Alomar
Felipe, Mateo and Jesus Alou
Tony and Marcos Armas
Erick and Willy Aybar
George and Juan Bell
Jolbert and Orlando Cabrera
Jose and Ozzie Canseco
Andujar and Domingo Cedeno
Alex and Joey Cora
Cesar and Felipe Crespo
Hector, Jose and Tommy Cruz
Adrian and Edgar Gonzalez
Vladimir and Wilton Guerrero
Livan and Orlando Hernandez
Julio and Ruddy Lugo
Angel and Pepe Manqual
Josias and Ravelo Manzanillo
Pedro and Ramon Martinez
Bengie, Jose and Yadnier Molina
Andy and Jose Mota
Jaime and Julio Navarro
Melvin and Wilbur Nieves
Carlos, Melido and Pascual Perez
Enrique and Vincente Romo
Javier and Jose Valentin

If there are any more combinations that I failed to add to this list, please feel free to let me know.

FHJ

Latino Father and Son Combos in MLB

While attending The All Star Fanfest a few weeks ago, I over heard a trivia question which inspired this post (Which father and son duo hit back to back hrs in the same game: Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr.). It made me wonder which were some of the Latino father and son combos that played in the major leagues. Here goes:

Sandy Sr. and Sandy Jr. and Roberto Alomar
Felipe and Moises Alou
Ruben and Ruben Amaro
Angel and Jack Aragon
Tony Armas Sr. and Jr.
Pedro and Pedro Borbon
Jose and Robinson Cano
Jose Cruz Sr. and Jr.
Tito and Terry Francona
Cesar and Maicer Izturis
Julian and Stan Javier
Elvio and Manny Jimenez
Rene and Aurelio Monteagudo
Manny and Andy and Jose Mota
Ed and Omar Olivares
Tony Peña Sr. and Jr.
Tony and Eduardo Perez
Diomedes Olivo and Gilberto Rondon
Diego and David Segui
Jose and Danny Tartabull
Pablo and Steve Torrealba
Ricardo and Gil Torres
Osvaldo Virgil Sr. and Jr.

Honorable mention, though these pairings did not play in MLB, they played professional baseball in other areas:

Luis Tiant Sr. and Jr. (Sr. played in Negro Leagues and Caribbean)
Luis Aparicio Sr. and Jr. (Jr. played in Venezuelan Winter League)
Perucho and Orlando Cepeda (Perucho played in Negro Leagues, Puerto Rican and Dominican Winter Leagues)
If I come across any more pairings, I'll update the post.
Take care,
FH