MVPs
AL – ‘Baby Jesus’ Joe Mauer, Minnesota; runner-up – Derek Jeter (NYY). Kendry Morales (LAA) deserves a lot more respect than he’s getting though in these post-season polls. He virtually carried the Angel’s offense singlehandedly when the big bats were out with injuries for lengthy periods.
NL – Albert Pujols, St. Louis; runner-up Hanley Ramirez (Florida). Pablo Sandoval (San Francisco) should get plenty of votes too…he’ll most likely wind up third in the voting.
Cy Young
AL – Zack Greinke, Kansas City; runner-up Felix Hernandez (Seattle) who’s a very strong dark horse candidate but can’t circumvent the voters (and the media’s) season-long ‘love affair’ with Greinke.
NL – Chris Carpenter, St. Louis; runner-up Adam Wainwright. One of these two Cardinals pitchers had better win the award!
Manager of the Year
AL – Joe Girardi, NYY, because he did turn the Yanks around after a disasterous opening month and a half. Mike Scoscia of the Angels will get consideration here for dealing with the death of future ace Nick Adenhart and winning the division title but Girardi really deserves it.
NL – Jim Tracy, Colorado. He took over the Rockies who were far out of contention and rallied them to an unbelievable wild-card finish. I can think of no one that should even challenge him for the award.
ROY
AL – Andrew Bailey, Oakland; Gordon Beckham (CWS) didn’t earn it statistically IMO and Rick Porcello (Detroit), Ricky Romero (Toronto) & especially Jeff Neimann (Tampa Bay) were all quite good - just not as good as Bailey was though.
NL – Chris Coghlan, Florida; this guy earned it with his terrific season! Martin Prado (Atlanta) was also very good – just not great. Tommy Hanson (Atlanta) and J.A. Happ (Philadelphia) were both very impressive and I guess I wouldn’t be surprised to see Happ somehow get enough votes to sneak past Coghlan…but it shouldn’t happen!
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