Talkin' Baseball

  The last award to come out that I am writing about is the Cy Young Award. I notice that this one is wrong a LOT of the time. Let's see if they were right on at least one of them, and, if there is a miracle, both of them. NL: Winner: Blake Snell Runner up: Logan Webb Third: Zac Gallen  Fourth: Spencer Strider Fifth: Justin Steele     Is this even a contest? The player in the top five with an ERA closest to Blake Snell's is off by a massive 81 points! This happens to be number five, Justin Steele, who had a 3.06 ERA in his breakout 2023 campaign. While there were a key things that the 2-5 choices had (Logan Webb leading the league in innings pitched and shutouts, Zac Gallen tied in shutouts, Spencer Strider leading in wins, and Justin Steele with the second lowest ERA in the top five and a .762 win percentage), it's not even close. Snell had a 2.25 ERA, 234 Ks, and a league leading 182 ERA+.  AL: Winner: Gerrit Cole Runner-up: Sonny Gray Third: Kevin Gausman Fou...

      Now that I am back in town, I can tell you about the MVP awards and whether the pros got them right or not. Let's start with the NL: Winner: Ronald Acuna Jr. Runner up: Mookie Betts Third: Freddie Freeman Fourth: Matt Olson Fifth: Corbin Carroll     While everybody in the top five had amazing seasons, it was really a contest of Mookie Betts and Ronald Acuna. I was surprised to find that Freddie Freeman was a finalist instead of Matt Olson. Nonetheless, all of the top four candidates really could have won it. However, I believe that Acuna was the obvious choice, as he led the league in runs, hits, steals, OBP, OPS, OPS+ and total bases, while driving in 106 runs and striking out 11.8% of the time (half the league average).  Mookie Betts did have a great season, covering the outfield, second base and shortstop, all while hitting .307 with 39 bombs and an OPS of .987. A great season, but the voters definitely got this one right.     Now, let's ...

 Just so you know, my family and I will be out of town for Thanksgiving starting tomorrow, so I will probably not be able to access my blog. I will pay attention to the awards and what's going on in the baseball world, and finishing my closer posts is on my to-do list. I will publish all that stuff when I get back into town in about a week to a week and a half. Thank you for understanding.

 I have already written on the Rookie of the Year award, so now I can tell you if the experts were right or not on the Manager of the Year awards. The AL Manager of the Year was Brandon Hyde, who was the manager of Baltimore's Orioles. The team won 101 games this season, best in the American League. They were rotten in 2021, losing 110 games before turning around in 2022 to win 83 games, and the manager hit his apogee this year. This is a fair vote and I can respect it. I personally may have chosen Bruce Bochy, who turned the Rangers around from losing 102 games in 2021 and 94 in '22, but the experts were fine on this one.  Unfortunately, I can't say they did a good job on the NL Manager of the Year. Somehow, the voters went with 43 year old Skip Schumaker of the Miami Marlins. Granted, this was his first year as a major league manager and he was over .500, but for goodness sake, he was only 84-78. Even though they lost 93 games last year and 95 the year before, nobody who ...

  Being a baseball fanatic, I need to tell you whether the pros got these awards right or not (because I definitely know more than the professionals). On November 13th, the first award, rookie of the year, was announced. Let's see who was chosen. NL: Winner: Corbin Carroll Runner up: Kodai Senga  Third: James Outman Fourth: Nolan Jones Fifth: Matt McLain Though all of these players were good this year, there wasn't much of a contest for the ROY. Corbin Carroll scored 116 runs, hit 25 bombs, stole 54 bags, led the league in triples, and played stellar defense in the outfield.  I'm afraid that not even Kodai Senga's 2.98 ERA and 202 Ks aren't enough to even compete with Carroll. AL: Winner: Gunnar Henderson Runner up: Tanner Bibee Third: Triston Casas Fourth: Josh Jung Fifth: Yainer Diaz Again we have a solid pitcher playing second banana to the winner of the award. Tanner Bibee was great this season, going 10-4 with a 2.98 ERA while pitching for the rotten Indians. B...

      On November first, the Rangers faced off with the Diamondbacks in the last game in Chase Field. The starting matchup was Zac Gallen vs. Nathan Eovaldi.      In the first five innings of the game, Zac Gallen was throwing a perfect game except for one measely walk he gave up to Nathaniel Lowe. It was a different story for Nathan Eovaldi, who allowed a runner in scoring position in every one of these innings and walking five batters. However, the score remained deadlocked at 0-0.     Gallen threw a perfect sixth, and so did Nathan Eovaldi. But when Gallen returned to throw the seventh, things turned for Arizona fans. Right away Gallen gave up three hits and a run. He proceeded to get the next out before being pulled, and Texas was held to one.      Chapman came into the game for Texas and threw 2/3 of an inning before ceding to Josh Sborz, who finished the inning and threw a scoreless eighth.     The game was still a na...

    Sorry I hadn't posted about the Fall Classic when the games happened. I had a monster migraine and didn't feel to good. Anyway...      On Wednesday and Thursday the Rangers played the Diamondbacks at Chase Field.      In game three Max Scherzer started against Brandon Pfaadt (love that man), and it was a very interesting matchup. Scherzer looked sharp through his three innings, but had a bout of back spasms and couldn't come out in the fourth. Jon Gray replaced him with a three run lead that came on a Semien double and a Seager home run.  The Diamondbacks could have stepped out to a lead if Christian Walker hadn't run through the stop sign at third base and right into the first out of the second. Jon Gray threw 3 scoreless to keep the game at 3-1. Aroldis Chapman came in to pitch the eighth for Texas, and the first two batters put Arizona on the board with an Emmanuel Rivera double and a Geraldo Perdomo single. Chapman ended up getting ou...