About two years ago I became a member of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America, allowing me the opportunity to cast ballots and vote on postseason awards. Now that the regular season is complete, here's a look at my ballot and selections for Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award for both the American and National Leagues.
By PATRICK GORDON | Managing Editor
September 29 2014, 1:00PM EDT.
@Philabaseball
Mike Trout is the type of player that comes around once every generation - he's an absolute beast at the plate and it's scary to think he just turned 23-years-old.
Despite a drop in batting average and steals, he managed to put together a 167 OPS+ and finished with a league leading 7.9 WAR. He should be a unanimous choice for AL MVP.
My AL MVP ballot: 1-Trout, 2-Abreu, 3-Donaldson, 4-Altuve, 5-Brantley, 6-Cano, 7-Martinez, 8-Bautista, 9-Cabrera, 10-Beltre.
Jose Abreu is the only other candidate I can see making a run against Trout. The rookie first baseman slashed .317/.383/.581 while finishing third in home runs and second in total bases behind Trout.
My NL MVP ballot: 1-McCutchen, 2-Lucroy, 3-Stanton, 4-Puig, 5-Rendon, 6-Heyward, 7-Werth, 8-Pence, 9-Morneau, 10-Goldschmidt
It's hard to argue their is a better all-around offensive player in the National League than Andrew McCutchen, plus he led his team to the postseason for the second consecutive season. His offensive WAR (7.8) is nearly two full points higher than that of second place Giancarlo Stanton (5.9), plus he finished just two bases behind Stanton for the NL lead while hitting 12 less homers.
Jonathan Lucroy put together a solid season and was great defensively, but he's a distant second in my book compared to McCutchen.
My AL Cy Young ballot: 1-Kluber, 2-Hernandez, 3-Sale, 4-Scherzer, 5-Richards.
With the Mariners in need of an important win in their chase of the Athletics, Felix Hernandez tossed a dud last week surrendering seven earned runs in an inning in a loss. In my opinion, that likely lost him the AL Cy Young.
Corey Kluber had a higher K/9 than Hernandez while also tying for the league lead in wins with 18.
My NL Cy Young ballot: 1-Kershaw, 2-Wainwright, 3-Cueto, 4-Zimmerman, 5-Hamels.
The NL Cy Young Award is really no contest as there's Kershaw and then everyone else. The 26-year-old led the NL in wins (21), earned run average (1.77) and WAR (7.5).
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