Except the Reds, who disqualified themselves from getting an Update this week by not winning a single game during their road trip. I don't expect too much from this bunch, but I think at least one win per week isn't a whole lot to ask. We'll ignore them while talking about the people that excelled in April. We also have to talk about one of the top players in the NL getting suspended, and
April Awards!
What better way to end the first month of the season than by deciding who would win MLB's year-end awards based on one month of baseball? I figure this should help me remember things at the end of the season when MLB lets me vote on the year-end awards. I think I need to get a double-digit readership to make that happen, and hopefully we can get there by the end of the year.
So without further adieu, let's hand out some fake awards.
American League MVP: Manny Machado, Baltimore Orioles
Machado has been the spark plug for the Orioles' surprising start, leading the AL with a 1.075 OPS & 1.8 WAR & batting over .340. He's a dangerous player when he's healthy, and if he stays off the DL the Orioles could do some big things this season.
National League MVP: Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals
Harper's started 2016 the same way he ended 2015: the best player in the NL by a country mile. .301 batting average, 9 home runs, 24 RBI, 8.1 at-bats between home runs, .753 slugging percentage, 1.171 OPS...dude is in the zone. He's been a little weak in defense so that hurts his overall numbers, but since when did MVP voters care about defense?
American League Cy Young: Jordan Zimmermann, Detroit Tigers
The American League is a superior offensive league to the National due to the designated hitter, so pitchers that make the transition from the NL to the AL usually see their numbers go down. Not Zimmermann, so far. His first month in Detroit couldn't have gone better, he went 5-0 with a .55 ERA. Tigers are 8-10 in games he doesn't start, so the rest of that staff needs to step their game up.
National League Cy Young: Noah Syndergaard, New York Mets
The statistics debate has been the backbone of baseball discussion for the past several years. Some people are old school and don't like all those fancy numbers. Some people are consumed by numbers. I find the numbers to be very helpful, especially when you don't get to see every single game. Syndergaard gets my vote here thanks to two somewhat new stats: K/9 & DIPs. K/9 is fairly simple: strikeouts per 9 innings. Noah averages 12.83 strikeouts per 9 innings, which blows away most of the rest of the league. More impressive than that to me is his DIPs, which is defense independent pitching statistics. Basically, the ERA a pitcher would have if the defense was average and there wasn't luck involved. Bad defense hurts guys' numbers and good defense helps them, these stats try to level the playing field. Syndergaard's 1.17 DIPs is by far the best in the NL, and he's the only pitcher in the top 9 in ERA that has a better DIPS than ERA.
Jake Arrieta is my second choice and has a better ERA & win total (and a no-hitter), but his strikeout numbers are nowhere near Syndergaard's and he gets a lot more help from his defense.
American League Rookie of the Year: Nomar Mazara, Texas Rangers
The AL selection for ROTY this season isn't getting as much love as the NL selection, and it's pretty easy to see why. You have to give Mazara credit though, he just turned 21 years old & is the youngest player in MLB at the moment, and since getting called up due to an injury to Shin-Soo Choo he's been on fire. With a batting average currently at .339 & an OPS of .852, Mazara is earning his current spot on the Rangers squad that he picked up over a good number of contenders on the AAA level. I think Joey Gallo's still a thing probably.
National League Rookie of the Year: Aledmys Diaz, St. Louis Cardinals
One of the most annoying things about the St. Louis baseball franchise is that it seems like every single player they call up out of the minors can hit the cover off the ball. Diaz is no different, currently hitting .420 with a .739 slugging percentage & 1.191 OPS. He's third in the league with runs and trails most of the top ten in the category by double digits. It's really not fair how the Cards hacked the Astros' computer system to get this guy. Trevor Story's cooled off a bit but still hits a lot of home runs, and Corey Seager should get things going eventually, so the NL ROTY race should be interesting.
American League Manager of the Year: Robin Ventura, Chicago White Sox
The White Sox looked like a mess during the preseason and there was all kinds of drama in the organization due to the Adam LaRoche situation. You have to have a good manager to keep a team on track while management is pissing them off. We learned this in Major League.
Robin Ventura = Lou Brown apparently. A team that wasn't supposed to contend for anything looks like one of the best in the American League so far.
National League Manager of the Year: Pete Mackanin, Philadelphia Phillies
Speaking of teams that weren't supposed to contend, the Phillies were barely even supposed to win an occasional game. They were widely expected to be the worst team in the National League, a league featuring quite the selection of bad teams this season. Pete Mackanin has excelled at getting the best out of his young players and putting them in positions to succeed, and they finished the month of April four games over .500. It probably won't last, but it's still a heck of an accomplishment.
Dee Gordon Suspension
One name who won't be appearing in my NL MVP consideration anytime soon is that of Miami Marlins second baseman Dee Gordon. Gordon tested positive for a banned substance during spring training and was suspended for 80 games on Thursday.
Gordon had a breakout season in 2015, his first with the Marlins. He won the NL batting title with a .333 batting average, led the league in hits & stolen bases, won the Golden Glove & Silver Slugger awards and was the bright spot on a otherwise disappointing Marlin team. This suspension will diminish these accomplishments in the eyes of most fans, unless Gordon manages to come back and achieve similar success after his suspension.
His relative struggles starting this season seem to make sense now, but he was still a key factor in some Marlin victories, enough so to make other players wonder if it was fair that a player awaiting suspension was allowed to play games in the meantime. It's one of those tricky things. It probably isn't fair in 99% of cases, but there's that 1% of the time where the suspension winds up being overturned, in which case the player & team involved would be complaining that the player wasn't allowed to play.
Gordon will be eligible to return on July 28. The Marlins won seven straight games to get one game over .500 in a division where the Nationals & Mets only lost seven games in April & the surprising Phillies sit at 14-10. It's going to be awfully tough for Miami to mount a challenge without Gordon, heck, it was going to be tough for them with him. Marlins fans will surely be disappointed once the Miami Heat basketball season comes to an end.
Awful April For Astros
Half of my World Series prediction looks pretty good after one month. The Chicago Cubs went 17-5 and laid waste to almost everything in their path. The other half looks pretty awful. The Houston Astros went 7-17 and looked like the Astros that were tanking in order to get good draft picks. Houston...has a problem.
Well, they have a lot of problems. Any Astro at the plate not named Jose Altuve is having a pretty bad season. Carlos Gomez is battling rib issues and having problems batting over .230. Luis Valbuena has a terrible average and usually makes up for it by hitting home runs...he had zero home runs in April. Carlos Correa has been rather average. Altuve's 1.011 OPS, 11 doubles & .611 slugging percentage have mostly gone to waste due to the ineptitude of the rest of the lineup.
The pitching's even worse. Dallas Kuechel didn't look anything like the guy that won the Cy Young Award last season, his velocity was way down and hitters were able to sit & wait on his pitches. Colin McHugh's over 6 ERA is ghastly. Lance McCullers is still out and his replacements are giving up tons of runs. Ken Giles is not living up to the billing he received out of Philadelphia and it doesn't look like he'll be assuming the closer role anytime soon. Current closer Luke Gregerson has been fine, but he's not getting a lot of opportunities.
Where do the Astros go from here? History is not on their side. Only one team in the history of baseball has made the postseason with a 7-17 or worse start. Fortunately for the Astros, that one team, the 1914 Boston Braves, won the World Series.
Three Series To Watch This Week
1. Cubs at Pirates (Monday-Wednesday): Having seen the Pirates play at the beginning & the end of April, I can say that is a team that has found its way. Getting the Reds in town helps, sure, but their struggles of early in the season are no more. Meanwhile, the Cubs have been on fire all month with no signs of stopping. Three games in Pittsburgh should provide a healthy challenge. Jason Hammel & Gerrit Cole on Monday's ESPN game should be a great pitching matchup.
2. Red Sox at White Sox (Tuesday-Thursday): Battle of the Sox! Boston's gone on a tear lately after some struggles at the beginning of April & Chicago stands alone at the top of the American League at the moment. Mat Latos goes on Thursday, but the Red Sox catch a break by missing Chris Sale.
3. Nationals at Cubs (Friday-Sunday): I try not to feature the same team twice in this section, but the Cubs get two great opposing teams this week. Some of the pitching matchups in this one look great: Max Scherzer & John Lackey on Friday afternoon (why this isn't on WGN America is a travesty of justice), Gio Gonzalez & Jason Hammel on Saturday, and Tanner Roark gets Jake Arrieta on Sunday. Should be interesting.
Well, that's all we have time for this week! Thanks for reading, and we'll see you next week with more baseball good times and great memories!
Nothing like giving the hometown fans the ol' Stone Cold Salute!
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