A quick re-cap of the recent awards given out every off-season. I would like to give a few congrats and "I figured that"s. First off, I figured that Craig Kimbrel would win the NL Rookie of the Year Award. A record 46 saves in your first season will make that more than likely, and since he's one of the main reasons the Braves were in contention in September at all, that's a fairly obvious pick. So congrats to Mr. Kimbrel. Plus, he's pretty cute, so it's a bonus for me!
Moving on...
Now, I admit to not really knowing much about Jeremy Hellickson. Why? Because the only rookie pitcher on the Rays that I paid attention to was Matt Moore. But congrats nonetheless. Having an ERA under 3.00 and 13 wins would indicate that that was once again a deserved choice.
When everyone first started talking about their predictions for NL Manager of the Year awhile back, I just assumed it would be Kirk Gibson. And what do you know? I was right! I can't say I'm a big Kirk Gibson fan, mainly because of his legendary association with the Dodgers, but he obviously did a lot of things right to pull off a "worst to first" with the Diamondbacks in the NL West. Being a Giants fan, I'm not too into the Diamondbacks, but they had one of the highest HR averages in the NL and a solid pitching rotation. So he gets a hesitant congrats from me.
I would say that Joe Maddon winning AL Manager of the Year was similarly unsurprising, and that the Rays had something in common with the Diamondbacks playoff-wise. Unfortunately, much like the multiple times the Twins have faced the Yankees in the ALDS, it was not to be for the Rays once again. And I'm sad to say that I missed that amazing final day of the season game they had, and the one ALDS game they managed to win against the Rangers. Apparently Matt Moore put on a hell of a performance. So another deserved congrats to Mr. Maddon.
The NL CY Young award winner was yet another "I figured that". Despite being a Dodger (again, I'm conflicted), Clayton Kershaw had such an amazing year and his numbers don't lie. The idea that anyone in the NL could catch him was kind of silly, especially given how the voting turned out. Is it wrong to say that when Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee came in behind Kershaw? Well, not to me. And I must say that I like his humility when compared with Dodger legend Sandy Koufax. Let's just hope Kershaw's career turns out better than the last Dodger to win the Cy Young, Eric Gagne. We can only hope.
My final sort-of congrats and definite "I figured that" is of course, Justin Verlander winning the AL Cy Young. Most of us probably knew this back in August, or maybe earlier. As I recall, the Tigers were running away with their division lead for quite some time before September came around. Do I think Verlander deserved it? Sure. He had an amazing year, one that had not been duplicated for at least a decade. However, my sort-of congrats comes from his apparent ego, especially when it comes to his chances of winning the AL MVP award.
Usually thinking that you are "different than everyone else" is something you might want to keep to yourself. Or at least I would. But to each his own. Humility is obviously not one of Verlander's strong suits and to rob players like Granderson, Cano and Ellsbury of the MVP award would be something short of criminal. We'll just have to see how it plays out.
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