2006 Rookie of the Year,

Cy Young and Most Valuable Player Awards

Special Edition

With the end of the season upon us it’s time to turn our attention to the leagues’ post season awards.  In an outstanding rookie class, which young player will be voted as the best of the bunch?  Which pitchers have so separated themselves from the pack that they deserve to be recognized as baseball’s best?  And finally, which players in each league have so distinguished themselves from the rest that they alone deserve to be noted as the most valuable in the game?

Over the past three weeks DN&N has given you a look at the top contenders for each of the three major awards.  On September 5 we previewed the Rookie of the Year prospects, a week later we took a closer look at the Cy Young contenders for both leagues, and then last week we got up close and personal with the statistics for all of the most deserving candidates for the games most renowned honor, the Most Valuable Player Award.

This week DN&N – as a bit of a rookie myself this season – is proud to present its first ever Rookie of the Year, Cy Young and Most Valuable Player Award selections.  I’ll step out on a limb even with four days still left to go in the season and declare who ought to be the winners in both leagues in each of these categories.  But I’ll go even further than that and give you our top 5 in each category for both the American and National leagues.  So without further delay, DN&N presents its first ever Rookie of the Year, Cy Young and Most Valuable Player Award Special Edition!

2006 American League Rookie of the Year

Both leagues in 2006 featured a stellar class of rookies.  Among the favorites in the American League going into the season as predicted by most of those here at BaseballEvolution were Ian Kinsler and Jonathan Papelbon.  Both in fact had successful rookie years, with Papelbon turning out a remarkable season as the surprise closer for the Red Sox.  My pre-season pick?  Well that was Japanese import Kenji Johjima despite my belief that Japanese players should not be eligible, as they have long since established themselves as professional baseball players who should be recognized as more than rookies.  Nevertheless, they are eligible and thus he was my pick.  So how did Johjima do?  Well he did just fine, ranking in the top five in the league.  None of those guys however gets my vote (as if I had one) for the American League Rookie of the Year Award.  That honor is bestowed upon Detroit rookie pitcher Justin Verlander, without whom the Tigers likely would not have made the playoffs.  Verlander stepped it up when Mike Maroth went down early in the year, and despite struggling during the dog days of summer, he put up numbers just too good ignore.  17-9 with a 3.63 ERA while leading all rookies with 186.0 innings pitched and helping to carry Detroit to an unlikely division title is enough to get my vote as Rookie of the Year, particularly in a season unlikely to feature a single 20-game winner throughout the major leagues.  Crying foul, are you?  What about Francisco Liriano?  Well his numbers are truly fantastic, and had he done that for a full season he’d surely have my vote, but his 16 starts to Verlander’s 30 cannot be overlooked, and thus Liriano comes up just short.  If only we could have seen what he could do with at least 25 starts…

My Top Five Rookie of the Year picks – American League

Apologies to Joel Zumaya, Nick Markakis, Ian Kinsler and Melky Cabrera.

2006 National League Rookie of the Year

Quite possibly the greatest rookie class in the history of the game, there are no less than 15 great rookies who in another year would merit top 5 consideration.  Slimming the list down to just 5 clearly wasn’t easy.  If only baseball had that problem every year. 

There were six different predictors and six different predictions here at BaseballEvolution when it came to pre-season picks for the NL ROY.  Josh Barfield and just one Marlin - Jeremy Hermida – were among those picked before the season began to be the leagues top rookie, as were ineligible players such as Ian Snell (54 IP combined in ’04 and ’05) and Conor Jackson (more than 45 days on the D’Backs roster in 2005 beginning with his recall on July 27).  I myself did pretty well with my selection of Prince Fielder while Eric came closest to nailing it with his pick of Ryan Zimmerman.

In the end, the top ten will wind up littered with Marlins, though not a single one of them will be Hermida.  Dan Uggla, Josh Willingham, Hanley Ramirez, Mike Jacobs, Josh Johnson, Scott Olsen, Ricky Nolasco, and no-hit phenom Anibal Sanchez all could make an argument that they belong.  So, however, do Zimmerman, Fielder, and others such as the Dodgers’ duo of Takashi Saito (again despite my belief that he is no rookie) and Jonathan Broxton, the Padres’ 1-2 punch of Clay Hensley and Cla Meredith, and the Giants 21-year old flame throwing rookie Matt Cain. 

So who gets my vote?  Did I say it wasn’t easy?  No matter who I ended up picking, it’d be hard to deny that someone else didn’t also deserve it.  Well in the end, I went with Marlins record setting second sacker Dan Uggla, the rule V pick who came out of nowhere to become the top rookie in what may be the greatest rookie class ever.  Uggla had 26 HR, 103 R, 89 RBI while also displaying a knack for situational hitting - his 8 SF tying Fielder for the lead among all ML rookies and his 7 SH placing him second among freshmen in the NL behind only pitcher Matt Cain.  He also hit into the fewest double plays (5) among qualified rookie batters and he hit very well (.329) with runners on base.  So who did he edge out?  Well I can’t leave it with just the top 5.

 My Top Ten Rookie of the Year picks – National League

2006 American League Cy Young Award

Can’t be much dispute this season about who deserves to win the AL Cy Young award.  Johan Santana has been the best in the game once again with the Twins going 27-7 in games he has started.  Improving his record to 19-6 and dropping his ERA to 2.77 with a 3-2 win over Kansas City on Tuesday, Santana remains poised to become just the 15^th AL pitcher in history – the 35^th overall – to win the pitching triple crown (Wins, Strikeouts, ERA).  He currently leads ALL major league pitchers in BOTH leagues in all three categories.  Santana is about as much of a slam dunk to win his second career CYA as it gets.

My Top Five Cy Young Award Picks – American League

Oh, my pre-season pick? 

Oops.  Kudos to Keith, the only one among us all to have gotten this one right.  C.C. Sabathia (if he had a few more starts and a little more luck…), Rich Harden and Roy Halladay (2) were the others to garner pre-season votes here at BBE. 

2006 National League Cy Young Award

In the National League, the battle was quite a bit closer with Brandon Webb and reigning CYA winner Chris Carpenter rising to the top in a two man battle.  The two, in fact, were so close that my decision flipped on the outcome of Tuesday’s contests.  With the Cardinals losing seven straight and now threatening to produce one of the most historic chokes in history, Carpenter’s less-than-inspired outing in the heat of the collapse (6 runs in 7 innings, albeit 4 in the seventh with Tony LaRussa reluctant to go to a tired and Isringhausen-less bullpen) as opposed to Webb’s dominating performance against San Francisco (despite being denied his league best 17^th win when the Giants mounted a late rally) is just enough to turn the tide and give my vote to Arizona’s ace as the leagues top pitcher.

My Top Five Cy Young Award Picks – National League

And uh, my uh…pre-season pick?

Uh..right.  Well then.  Derek Lowe, Pedro Martinez and three selections of Carlos Zambrano round out the BBE staff picks in this category without a single mention of either Webb or Carp.  Onward we go then, eh?

2006 American League Most Valuable Player Award

Derek Jeter, for his part in leading the Yankees to their 9^th straight division title, is the favorite to win the award.  But he’s not my pick.  While the Yankees’ captain had a fantastic season, his club strolled easily into the playoffs while Justin Morneau helped to drive the Twins from a horrible start and into the playoffs in part by batting .359 with 24 HR after May 30 and by coming up big in the clutch, batting .368 in a pennant race in September.  It’s that intangible that gives him the edge in my book and gets him my vote as the American League Most Valuable Player.  Jeter finishes second, but nearly edging both of them out was Santana, who proved as valuable as Morneau and Mauer in leading the Twins back from a 9-16 start through April to a record of 85-47 since then.

My Top Five Most Valuable Player Award Picks – American League

My preseason pick for AL MVP? 

Certainly could have turned out worse. Not an MVP type performance, but certainly I have no shame in that pick.  Heck, no one else nailed this one either with two pre-season votes for Mark Teixeira and one each for Vladimir Guerrero, Travis Hafner and Manny Ramirez.

2006 National League Most Valuable Player Award

It’s been a two horse race in the NL for the MVP award between my pre-season pick, Albert Pujols, and last season’s ROY award winner, Ryan Howard.  Both players have put up some spectacular numbers with Howard chasing 60 home runs and Pujols himself chasing 50 and currently tying his career high in RBI (130) despite missing three weeks in June with a strained oblique.  But while at one point it seemed as though Pujols would win the intangible wild card – St. Louis making the playoffs while the Phillies go home – Philadelphia now sports a better record than the Cardinals by a game and a half, and trail in the Wild Card chase by just a game.  Meanwhile, St. Louis has seen their lead in the Central shrink to just 1.5 games with five to play.  In addition, Philadelphia on July 31 sat at 49-55, 5.5 games behind the Wild Card leader.  With Bobby Abreu traded at the deadline, the Phillies then jumped on Howard’s big back and have ridden him to a 33-20 record since that time with Little Papi leading the charge by batting .378 with 23 HR and 59 RBI since August 1; even more impressively batting .420 with 9 HR and 18 RBI so far in September despite getting the Bonds treatment (12 IBB in Sept. – 10 in August). MVP Awards are often won in the final month of the season and so too is the case this year.  You really couldn’t go that wrong with either player, but for the 2006 season, Ryan Howard is my selection as the leagues Most Valuable Player.

My Top Five Most Valuable Player Award Picks – National League

I wasn’t the only one to go with Pujols prior to the season, with Sir Albert garnering 3 other pre-season picks.  Miguel Cabrera and Adam Dunn were the others.