Many sportswriters use the All-Star break as a time to dole out MVP, Cy Young, and Rookie of the Year Awards.  The thing is, The great players of the first half may not be the ones in the running at the end of the year.  What if Travis Hafner relaxes with his new contract and puts together a couple of months like last August?  If the Tigers suffer some injuries and fall out of the playoff hunt, is Magglio Ordonez still a viable candidate?  Will Carlos Zambrano's self proclaimed "new season" that began June 6th in Milwaukee continue and lead him to a Cy Young Award?

We just don't know for sure.  A contrastingly unique element to the Alex Gonzalez of the Marlins and Mark Redman Awards is that we already have the list of candidates narrowed down.  By definition, a player must have had a good first half to be eligible for the hardware, or at least a better first half than we would normally predict given his career track record.  So let's examine these potential second half busts in some detail.

PrOPS and FIP are two of the best ways to identify potential chokers.  PrOPS estimates a batter's OPS mostly by using his batted ball data (% line drives vs. popups, BB vs K, etc.).  FIP calculates an ERA for pitchers based solely on the elements of pitching most under their control: strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed.  One caveat for using both statistics in this manner is that a pitcher getting good defense behind him in the first half will likely continue to if he is playing on a good defensive team, and a batter who is getting a lot of cheap home runs  because he hits in a bandbox may continue to do so as well ( i.e. we would expect Padres hitters to under-perform their PrOPS and outperform their FIP).

ML First half "leaders" in FIP-ERA, courtesy of The Hardball Times:

If the Over/Under on Dan Haren's second half ERA is 4.00, I'm taking the Over.  I realize that the Athletics boast a fine defense and that even Haren's FIP is under 4.00, but his ERA was over 4.00 with a similar defense behind him last season, and his HR per Outfield Fly is extremely low this year, while in 2006 he did his best Robin Roberts impersonation with the longball.  He's still a young man, so it's possible that he's just making fewer mistakes this time around, but as a betting man, I'd still take that Over. 

Will that win Haren the Mark Redman hardware? Nay, because even an ERA of 4.50 in the second half would make his overall numbers look solid at this point.  When you have an award named after Mark Redman, you're not honoring someone who puts up solid numbers at season's end.  Enter Chad Durbin, naturally.  The emergence of prospect Andrew Miller has relegated Durbin to the bullpen, however, meaning he won't likely log enough second half innings to destroy his already mediocre ERA.

The next two AL pitchers on our list are a bit shocking.  I couldn't possibly predict Santana to win a Redman.  He is the anti-Redman with his career 45-10 mark after the break (2.55 ERA).  As for Mark Buehrle, White Sox fans may want to stop celebrating his "discounted" price tag of $14 million per year.  But I wouldn't peg him for this year's Redman Award, because Darren Erstad and Scott Podsednik should return at some point in the second half, aiding Sox contact pitchers like Buehrle.

After Chad Gaudin of Oakland, we have John Lackey (LAA-0.89), Jeremy Guthrie (BAL-0.88), Justin Verlander (Det-0.86),  Joe Kennedy (Oak-0.78), Steve Trachsel (Bal- 0.71), John Danks (CHW-0.62) and Chien-Ming Wang (NYY-0.62)  for AL pitchers.  All of these Oakland pitchers on our list is really speaking to their defense, and indeed they led all of the American League in +/- rating and were second only to Toronto in Relative Zone Rating in the first half.  Lackey, Verlander, and Wang each have enough of a success pattern to ward us away from dubbing them Redmans. 

I don't know about you, but I see 37-year old Steve Trachsel with 14 more walks than strikeouts at the half, and think that he's our man.  Just one problem - He's currently on the DL, either with a real injury, or Leo Mazzone is just trying to fix him.  Either way, he's a risky pick here.

So I'm surprised I had to go this far down the FIP-ERA list, but I would take rookie John Danks for our 2007 Redman winner.  His minor league numbers have always stunk despite good strikeout-to-walk ratios.  Are we to believe that his sub-2:1 major league ratio is good enough to prevent this 22-year old from combusting?  Teams who have seen Danks more than once have hit him hard, and there are going to be more of those come the second half.  With Gil Meche (0.55) and Fausto Carmona (0.44) also strong runner up candidates, Danks is my man in the AL.

The National League is much more straightforward.  The two top guys on our list, Jason Marquis and Oliver Perez, both have Mark Redman written all over them.

Jason's ERA has increased every month, and quite frankly, we could call this the Jason Marquis Award if we wanted to.  His career first half numbers: 43-28, 4.22.  Second half: 19-29, 4.81.  Wrigley Field always plays more like a hitter's park during the summer than in April, and this being his first year with the Cubs, Jason isn't used to playing in 95-degree day games.  As Harry Caray might say, "There's danger here, Marquis."

Oliver Perez is currently on the DL, but pitched well in rehab, and is scheduled to start Sunday.  His control has gotten steadily worse as the season has progressed, however.  Anyone who has taken a flyer on Perez in fantasy baseball the past couple of seasons also knows that he can string together 6.00+ ERA months like Christmas lights.  One positive omen is that his second half ERA is half a run lower than his first half ERA over the course of his career, even with 2007's favorable first half numbers factored in.

I'm still an Oliver Perez fan for some reason, and as a Cubs fan, I don't want Marquis to explode.  But I'm pretty confident that our 2007 NL Mark Redman Award will go to one of these two gents.  If forced to choose, I'd take Marquis.  I'm still a Rick Peterson believer, and Oliver Perez just has flat out superior stuff.