With the 2008 postseason beginning to wind down, it's time to look back at the regular season and hand out some hardware to some well-deserving players and managers for the jobs they turned in.
As with any season, picking league MVPs, Cy Young winners, top rookies and the best managers is controversial. No doubt some will disagree with at least a few of my choices below. So feel free to chime in with your picks and why you hate mine. Chances are you won't change my mind, but that doesn't mean I don't love a good debate, especially when it comes to baseball.
AL MVP – Justin Morneau, Twins
He isn’t the best player in the American League, but for the 2008 season there was nobody more valuable to his team than Justin Morneau. Without Morneau, Minnesota would never have forced that one game playoff for the AL Central this season. The Twins first sacker led the team with 29 homers and 129 RBI, second to Josh Hamilton’s AL leading 130, and his .300 average was second on the team to Joe Mauer’s AL leading .328 mark.
Morneau also proved his value in the field for Minnesota, committing just four miscues in 155 games at first for a career-best .997 fielding mark. Morneau also set a career-best in doubles with 47 and tied his career high with 97 runs scored, the same total he had in 2006 when he won AL MVP honors. Like I said, without him the Twins don’t play a 163rd game, and Morneau played them all.
ML MVP – Albert Pujols, Cardinals
I hate this guy, and always will. He single-handedly ruined possibly the penultimate moment of my career as an Astros fan in Game 5 of the 2005 NLCS with that bomb off Brad Lidge in the ninth. Never mind that my ‘Stros eventually won the series and went on to their first World Series. I was at that Game 5 and after 44 years following the Houston franchise at that point, I was primed and ready to celebrate their first NL Pennant that night before Albert ‘Effin’ Pujols sent me home a very unhappy fan.
But as much as I hate him for that, I can’t ignore the numbers Pujols put up on a team that was merely average. As Morneau was to the Twins, Phat Albert was as valuable if not more so to the Cardinals who would’ve been out of the playoff hunt long before mid-September without him. Pujols led the majors in slugging (.653), OPS (1.114), total bases (342), intentional walks (34) and a host of other columns, plus he ranked second in the big leagues in batting average (.357) and on-base percentage (.462). Simply a beast.
Runner-ups: David Wright (New York), Ryan Howard (Philadelphia), Manny Ramirez (Los Angeles)
AL Cy Young – Cliff Lee, Indians
Talk about a turnaround! Though the potential has always been there for Cleveland lefthander Cliff Lee, there was certainly nothing to suggest he would have the kind of season he enjoyed in 2008. And even though the Indians did not challenge for the postseason – In fact, they had a very disappointing season after the preseason hype as AL Central contenders – the Tribe would’ve been wallowing in the muck and mire with teams like the Mariners and Orioles without the southpaw.
Injuries and utter ineffectiveness had Lee trying to salvage his career at Cleveland’s Triple-A club in Buffalo back in 2007, and he apparently got things right. Lee topped the AL Charts in ERA (2.54) and Wins (22), plus ranked second to Toronto’s Roy Halladay in Complete Games (4), Innings (223.1) and WHIP (1.11). Cleveland relievers blew three more wins that could’ve been added to Lee’s total, and he got no-decisions in three more games that he worked at least seven innings and allowed one run or less. As no-brainer a pick as there is with this season’s individual hardware.
Runner-ups: Roy Halladay (Toronto), Daisuke Matsuzaka (Boston), Mike Mussina (New York)
NL Cy Young – Tim Lincecum, Giants
I still can’t get past how much Lincecum reminds me of actor Alan Ruck from his younger days back when he played Ferris Bueller’s best buddy Cameron Frye in the 1986 comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Of course, Lincecum has a much better curve and fastball than Ruck, but they still look alike.
In just his first full season the scrawny Lincecum posted some eye-popping numbers for a Giants team that had very little else to get excited over. The righthander out of Bellevue, WA, led the Senior Circuit with 265 strikeouts and hits allowed per nine innings (7.22), plus finished second in wins with 18 and second in ERA at 2.62. There will be a lot of talk about the award going to Milwaukee’s C.C. Sabathia, and rightly so. But Lincecum gets my nod for what should be the first of several Cy Young awards in his promising career.
Runner-ups: C.C. Sabathia (Milwaukee), Brandon Webb (Arizona), Johan Santana (New York)
AL Rookie of the Year – Evan Longoria, Rays
Wow! There was a ton of preseason pub for Longoria but you had to wonder if it would come true this year when he started the season in the minors at the Rays’ Triple-A club in Durham. He wasn’t there long.
Longoria played just seven games at Durham and made his MLB debut on April 12 for Tampa Bay, playing a huge part in their incredible season that is still going. But a busted hand in early August looked like it might derail both Longoria’s and Tampa Bay’s season before the third baseman made it back in mid-September to help propel the team to their amazing AL East title. Considering the time he missed and then having to come back from the hand injury, Longoria’s 27 homers, 85 RBI and .531 slugging are all the more amazing.
NL Rookie of the Year – Geovany Soto, Cubs
As much as I don’t like St. Louis’ Albert Pujols, it doesn’t come close to the loathing I’ve maintained for the Cubs since 1962. But once again, I simply can’t ignore the numbers and the contribution this rookie backstop made to Chicago’s NL Central title.
After brief tastes of big league life the previous few seasons, Soto exploded on the scene this season with 23 taters, 86 runs driven in and an .868 OPS, all solid numbers for a veteran catcher much less one thrown into the works as a rookie to guide a pitching staff like he did. Soto’s offense will get the most attention, but his defense was also there in 2008 with just five passed balls, five errors and 25 of 94 would-be base stealers sent back to the dugout.
AL Manager of the Year – Joe Maddon, Rays
Ok, maybe picking Cliff Lee as the AL Cy Young winner isn’t the biggest no-brainer among these awards as there’s little doubt that Maddon will take home honors as the top skipper in the American League. Tampa’s coach is as unique as their season was this year after 10 years of never having won more than 70 games. Rays pitcher James Shields has described Maddon as being “calm, quiet.” Yet the bespectacled dugout commander has his team playing as aggressively and chaotic on the base paths as any team in the majors.
A wine connoisseur, avid reader, part-philosopher and part-engineer, the bespectacled Maddon deserves a ton of credit for simply getting a bunch of youngsters to believe they could be the usual bullies in the AL East. And believe they did.
NL Manager of the Year – Charlie Manuel, Philadelphia
Unlike Maddon being the clear pick in the AL, the National League really doesn’t have a clear choice for the top manager. No doubt that Lou Piniella and Joe Torre did great jobs with the Cubs and Dodgers respectively. Tony La Russa might have done some of his best managing this season in St. Louis, and that’s saying something. Jerry Manuel just about turned the underachieving Mets around and even though I’m biased, Cecil Cooper had Houston in it until the final weekend after Hurricane Ike served to help take some of the wind out of the Astros’ sails.
Meanwhile Charlie Manuel and the Phillies kept plodding along, winning their second straight NL East title and now headed to the World Series for the first time in 15 years. Manuel looks like he’d be more at home on a farm or punching cattle, but the good ol’ boy looks are deceiving and all you have to know about this guy is his nickname from his playing days in Japan: Aka Oni, which translates to Red Devil. And with the Phils on the cusp of a championship now, the devil just may get his due this year.
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Evan Longoria, Rays lead postseason awards list
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