On to the show!
Bump Bailey Award (Bone Thugs MVP)
Paul Goldschmidt - MBHB - 321/435/570, 103 R, 110 RBI, 21 SBs
Go ahead and call me a homer. Go ahead and call me Homer, if you want. But there was no player more valuable to a fantasy team this year than this guy. He was one of only 3 players to score 100 and knock in 100 while in active lineups this year (Jose Bautista and MBHB teammate Josh Donaldson were the others; YoAuns! and Crash Davis also achieved the milestone on the season, but they weren't in lineups or weren't on their respective fantasy teams for at least some of that production). He finished as one of 4 season long Escalator Club members (Bryce Harper, Joey Votto and Miggy Cabrera were the others, though Miggy didn't qualify for the batting title, so he may or may not count, depending on your feelings about that sort of thing) and he was one of 27 players that had 21 or more stolen bases. None of the other names mentioned in any of the above paragraph finished with more than Votto's 11. Goldschmidt spent a good part of the season doing a fairly passable right handed Lou Gehrig impersonation. Pretty much, if you were looking for someone who was an all around fucking superstar, this is your guy. Well, he's actually my guy, so, sorry, you can't have him. I actually almost threw him back into the pool last year because of his $60 salary. If I would not have had to trade Anthony Rizzo for 0 weeks worth of production out of Aramis Ramirez, I would have been watching Goldschmidt put up this production for another team...probably Jimmy's team, because everyone good seemed to end up on Jimmy's team.
Henry Rowengartner Award (Bone Thugs Pitcher of the Year)
Jake Arrieta - UCCMA - 229 IP, 22W, 236Ks, 1.77/0.86, 29 QS
Talking about good players ending up on Jim's team.... I think the Arrieta narrative has been beaten into the ground sufficiently over the last few month. Suffice to say, he's been terrific at throwing a ball and making very skilled men look like not-so-skilled koala bears. You can look at the numbers, they are right up there and they are terrific. What interests me about Arrieta is what in the world are the Cubs going to do with him. The easy/quick response is sign him up. But there are warning signs. Something happened to him during the 3rd or 4th inning of the Wild Card game against Pittsburgh and his velocity dropped from 96/97 to 92/93 and his off speed stuff lost a bunch of its bite. He was able to David Eckstein his way through the rest of that game, but it showed in his outings against the Cardinals and Mets. Maybe it was a bit of fatigue setting in after a once in a life time run, maybe it was a tweak. But whatever he reason, if the Cubs sign Arrieta long term now, they are paying for the unicorn season. He is controllable for two more years, so it wouldn't surprise me to see them let him go at least to start this year and see if he can come close to a repeat performance before they move to lock him up. On top of that, many in baseball think that the Cubs are going to end up with the 30 year old David Price this offseason. With Lester already on the books through his age 49 season (approximate) and a Price contract that will be at least 5, probably 6 years, and will pay him over $25 million per season until after his 35th birthday, will the Cubs want to pony up top dollar for another pitcher in his mid to late 30s while still growing all of those young hitters? Arrieta will be 31 next year, and as I said earlier, is controllable through the end of his age 32 season. Any extension would kick in AFTER that. So a 4 or 5 year extension would take him to his 37 or 38 year old season and would likely pay him north of $20 mil per season as well. I don't care how many young superstar hitters you have, paying 3 35+ year old pitchers over $20 million a season each doesn't sound like a winning formula to me.
Jake Taylor Award (Harmony MVP)Jose Altuve - BySs - 313/353/459, 86 R, 67 RBI, 39 SBs
This was actually the most difficult award to give out. With all of the big time hitters in MLB residing over in the Bone Thugs division, there was kind of a dearth of options in Harmony. It basically came down to a bunch of very similar valued players. Anthony Rizzo had an amazing season (278/387/512, 94R 101RBI 17SB) and in any normal year would garner some serious real life MVP buzz (this year all of the MVP buzz goes to Bryce Harper. Seriously, he should get all first place votes, all of the second place votes, all of the 3rd place votes, all of the 4th place votes and all of the 5th place votes. Anyone in the BWAA who doesn't vote Harper 1st should immediately lose his or her privilege of covering baseball for whatever publication they work for.). Rizzo would be a fine choice here, and might even be the right one. But I am going to go with Altuve. Actually...that's a lie. I cant do it. I really really want to, but Altuve was basically a poor man's AJ Pollack this year...and there isn't anything wrong with that, but when AJ is better in every single one of the 6 categories we use to score, I cant name you MVP. I am sorry Jose, but there is no amount of Altuves that will win the Jake Taylor this year. Let's try this again:
Jake Taylor Award (Harmony MVP)
Manny Machado - Javy Bombs - 286/359/502, 102 R, 86 RBI, 20 SBs
And I feel dirty writing that. Once upon a time I really wanted to like Manny Machado. He's a tremendous baseball player. He impresses just about everyone with his ability to throw thunder bolts to first while sitting on the left field foul line. He runs with the speed and agility of a much smaller man. And he can drop bombs, 35 of them this year to be exact...and he is 23 years old. He also plays for the O's, and most of you know about my affection for all things Orioles stemming from my days playing on the Chicago Orioles (where we wore the same jerseys as the Baltimore team, but had different lids). Unfortunately, beyond all of that, Machado is a dick. Like, we're talking a bigger dick than Bob. And I don't like to give out big important awards to dicks. Can I give the award to Bryce Harper even though he didn't play in that league? No? Fine. We'll just move on.
Steve Nebraska Award (Harmony Pitcher of the Year)
Clayton Kershaw - Javy Bombs - 232 2/3 IP, 16 W, 301 Ks, 2.13/0.88, 27 QSLast season I wrote, " I think that NL teams need to start coming up with ways to make Kershaw think that a game in the middle of May is Game 1 of the NLDS. Otherwise, the Steve Nebraska Award might as well set up permanent residence in th still just 26 year old pitcher's living room." Well, the Steve isn't going anywhere any time soon. Kershaw put up what was arguably his most dominating season yet. He didn't have the signature moments like scoreless streak, or the no hitter that he had last season, but Kershaw struck out 301 batters, becoming the first pitcher to do so since 2002 when Randy Johnson's mullet and Curt Schilling both topped the mark. <<Quick side note. I remember Randy Johnson pretty clearly. I was 12 when he started his dominance in 1993 and I was in my baseball watching heyday as he was destroying Major League hitters and I saw a fair number of his starts and probably just about all of the highlights on SportsCenter. But when I look at the stats, I am still completely blown away. Everyone was amazed with Kershaw hit 300 Ks this year, and strikeouts around the league are up, with the last 2 years the highest number of strikeouts per game in the history of major league baseball (7.70 in 2014, 7.71 in 2015). In 1998, the Big Unit struck out 329 batters. Then struck out 364 in 1999, 347 in 2000, 372 in 2001, and 334 in 2002. In those years, the highest strike outs per game was 6.67. That's not really very fair.>> Kershaw was able to increase that strikeout total while reducing his walks to 42. That 7.167 strikeouts to walks ratio, in addition to the still low ERA and WHIP, tell you that hitters knew they were getting strikes and still couldn't do anything with it.
Jimmy Dugan Award (Manager of the Year)- Kevin, Ghetto CowboysKevin took over an absolutely terrible team last year, and managed to make it respectable. This year, he was able to build with his own players and turned in a solid regular season performance. In the playoffs, he really turned it on taking the last entry spot in the playoffs and turning it into a 3rd place overall finish. He was in from the beginning of the season on Miguel Sano, jumped on Lorenzo Cain before anyone else did, and made a big trade for Stephen Strasburg, but the biggest thing that he did this year was not trade Bryce Harper. I know Kevin was at least toying with the idea as him and I talked about it very early in the season (I backed out, refusing to part with Cole Hamels and telling Kevin why I wasn't interested in his $53 salary, "I'm not sure he has potential to be a Trout type player anymore. He regressed badly last year to the point where he was barely above average. He is still just 23 and obviously has talent, but I'm not sure the Nats should be printing up his Cooperstown plaque just yet." Whoops. Missed that evaluation by a smidge.
Icky Woods Award (Unexpected Greatness)Marco Estrada - FA -
If you would have asked any self respecting Brewer fan for an over/under on the number of HRs Marco Estrada was going to allow if he were able to throw 181 innings this year, they likely would have set the bar at a Brad Radkeian 40. Instead, he limited the HRs allowed to 24, managed to limit hard contact better than in any of his previous seasons, dropped his WHIP down to 1.04 and won 13 games to help the Blue Jays get to the ALCS. And not a single one of us believed in it enough to add him to our roster for $1.
AJ Pollack ($1) - Pick up by BySs, now on MBHB
Lots of times there is a player who shows up on the waiver wire early in the season with ridiculous numbers, and then the league remembers he is Tuffy Rhodes and the player goes back to being a mostly anonymous cog in the baseball wheel (see Charlie Blackmon or Devin Travis). Pollack was not that player this year. He did start off hot, but then the cold streak never came...the COLD STREAK NEVER CAME! Pollack finished the season as the #4 overall hitter with a 315/367/498 slash line and 111 runs, 76 RBIs and 39 stolen bases. Kyler dealt him to me for Cole Hamels (I don't know what it was about Hamels, maybe his $6 salary, but I could have moved him for Harper and did move him for Pollack. He must have beer flavored nipples) when I needed an OFer to replace the DL'ed Springer and craptastic (to that point) Christian Yelich.
Icarus Award (High Acheivement, Then Crash) Young Joc (Ghetto Cowboys)
Has there ever been someone more fitting for this award than Joc Pederson this year? In the first half of the season, Pederson was everything that the Dodgers had hoped he would be when they called him up late in 2014. He played tremendous defense, hit 20 HRs in 89 games and got on base at a .364 clip. The batting average hung around .230, but with adjustments, that should have settled in between .240 and .250 with a .375 OBP, solid power and elite defense. He made the All-Star team, put on a great show in the Derby and had people talking about an epic Rookie of the Year showdown with not yet fully formed Kris Bryant. Then...the second half of the season happened. Joc hit 178/317/300. The power disappeared (only 6 HRs), when he did make contact it wasn't with any authority. He hit 169/229/258 in 96 PAs in July, then followed it up by hitting 120 with a 260 slugging in 74 August plate appearances. He finished behind Justin Bour in the RoY voting. He is still just 23, and he has the physical talent to be a solid MLB player (even with the awful second half he finished with a 112 OPS+), but... actually, I am going to avoid saying anything here so we don't repeat the great Bryce Harper fiasco of 2015.
Jhonathan Solano Award (Worst Player won at auction) -
Danny Santana $1 (Ghetto Cowboys)
This is a carry over from the keeper list. You all know my feeling on Danny Santana, but the advanced metrics back me up. Danny Santana was the least valuable player in the majors this season. It appears as though the Twins have moved on...I hope that we can all move on as well.
Ned Yost Award (Curious Managerial Decisions that somehow seem to end up ok) - Dusty
Here is a list of some of the Dusty Manager choices this year:
1) He left Troy Tulowitzki in the lineup for the first round of the playoffs even through everyone knew he was not going to be playing and despite having a perfectly terrible JJ Hardy on the bench.
2) He drafted Austin Jackson and kept him on the team for the entire season, even when he was traded from Detroit to Seattle and didn't have a starting job and even when he was traded from Seattle to the Cubs and was barely playing twice a week.
3) He started the aforementioned Austin Jackson over
4) He drafted Jhonathan Solano last season. This will never be ok and will never not be held against Dusty.
5) He spent approximately 86% of his salary on hitters, leaving pitchers many of us have never heard of to pitch meaningful innings for his fantasy team.
6) He splurged on the waiver wire for a $3 pickup of Drew Pomeranz. This was his largest pickup of the season as he spent a grand total of $14 from his FAAB budget.
7) He made exactly one trade all season...and in that trade gave away Nolan Arenado (the #5 overall hitter in our league) for a box of Mike Trout salty pretzels, hunter pence's scooter and a pile of pitching poop.
Despite all of these things, somehow Dusty managed to get to the Semi-Finals and ultimately finish in 4th place. Rereading the previous items makes me lose my faith in humanity and in fantasy sports.
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