My 2012 MLB Awards Preferences

Obviously, I don't have a vote, so I'm not calling this my vote, but rather just my preferences. Here goes:

National League Rookie of the Year: Bryce Harper, WSN. Harper didn't have the outlandish year that people expect him to have, or that a certain other youngster had in the other league, but he was clearly the best hitter of the National League Rookies. Norichika Aoki is the next-best competition, and according to Fangraphs he was nearly 2 wins less useful than Harper. Harper led all NL rookies who don't play in Colorado in home runs and led all rookies in runs scored, all while playing great defense at multiple outfield positions including center field. The main competition on the pitching side is Wade Miley of the Diamondbacks, who gets a very similar WAR number to Harper from Fangraphs. However, to be honest I think the phrase "Rookie of the Year" legitimately includes some concept of most "impact" rookie, and I think it's hard to deny Harper had lots of impact. You can make an argument that he provided the Nationals with credibility and optimism, although I don't think that's necessary to give him the award.

American League Rookie of the Year: Mike Trout, LAA. If Mike Trout doesn't win this award unanimously, it will be an outrage. His closest competition is probably Yu Darvish of the Rangers, the Japanese import who struggled at times but ultimately had a fine season that justified his All-Star selection. But those words "struggled at times" are crucial; Trout didn't. Yoenis Cespedes of the Athletics is the next-best position-playing rookie, but, uh, the leadoff-hitting Trout had more runs batted in than the middle-of-the-order slugging Cespedes. This better be unanimous.

National League Cy Young Award: R.A. Dickey, NYM. Oh, come on, like I was ever going to say anything else. As if Dickey needed any extra justification on top of how he dominated the league to the tune of 20-6 (for a bad team!) by using a variety of power pitching that just happened to rely on knuckleballs, he pitched the whole year with a big ol' abdominal injury. None of the other starting pitchers is particularly close to Dickey, in my opinion. I have to say that I won't be outraged if Craig Kimbrel wins this instead, because he has been obscenely good this year and in general I think relief pitchers get too little respect especially from the statistically-advanced sabermetric types. However, I'm voting Dickey. He's just that awesome.

American League Cy Young Award: Fernando Rodney, TBR. To be honest, no one had an absurd campaign as a starting pitcher this year. Verlander was great, sure, as always, and people like David Price and King Felix were good as well, but nobody really stands out. Except Rodney, who just posted the lowest ERA of all time (for non-trivial innings pitched). 0.60 runs allowed per nine innings. He allowed five runs all year, across 76 games pitched. Like, actually. I don't know how he did it and I don't know why he did it, but to me, the phrase "best ERA ever" tells me you should win the Cy Young Award. And yes, I know, arguably Kimbrel's season was even more dominant by various advanced metrics, and yes, I may be voting Dickey out of pure Mets rooting/awareness of how awesome the Sun God of Queens is. Get over it.

National League Most Valuable Player Award: Yadier Molina, STL. I really, really, really wanted to be able to say "David Wright" in this spot, and by WAR he's right in the middle of the conversation. But, man, he really just didn't have a good approach all through the second half of the year and it really hurt his team. He should definitely win the Gold Glove, but not the MVP. And, honestly, I have a long experience with how annoying it is to play against the Cardinals because of Molina's defensive ability, so given his current status as a reasonably elite hitter I think he probably contributed more to his team than anyone else.

American League Most Valuable Player Award: Miguel Cabrera, DET. I know, I know, Mike Trout played better than Miguel Cabrera this year. He played a tougher position, he played it better, he ran the bases better, etc. He blew Miguel Cabrera out of the water in WAR. Hell, Cabrera wasn't even second in WAR. Hell, even if you just look at raw offensive performance they were basically neck-and-neck using even a modicum of advancedness about one's stats. And I will not complain if Mike Trout wins this award. He easily deserves it. But, look, Miguel Cabrera won the frickin' Triple Crown. That's, um, impressive. Perhaps close to a majority of this country is not old enough to remember the last time it happened. Yes, I'm ultimately making the argument that the Triple Crown should basically just be an automatic (the precedent of the two times Ted Williams was denied the MVP despite winning the Crown strike me as basically miscarriages of justice, so not of much weight). But I also think that the entirely valid and important (well, insofar as anything in sports is important) critique of over-reliance on traditional counting stats has bled into a hyper-rational denigration of those stats. By "hyper-rational" I mean sort of the view that anything non-rational must be irrational, and therefore wrong. No, Miguel Cabrera's performance did not add as many wins to his team as Mike Trout's, compared to if he hadn't existed and some replacement player had been used. And in general I do think that WAR is a pretty good guide to MVP voting. But a few weeks back I said that if Cabrera won the Triple Crown I would think he needed to win MVP, and otherwise I'd think Trout needed to. There's a kind of magic in the Triple Crown, there's a reason why it's so hard, and honestly in the end I just think the award should this year be given to the sentimental non-rational candidate rather than the candidate who undeniably played better baseball.

Like I said, I have zero problem with things if the BBWAA decides to give the award to Trout instead. He pretty clearly does deserve it. But personally, this is a time when I would allow myself to let the mystical intangible stuff play the deciding role. Besides, Trout is probably going to have occasion to win this award some time when nobody runs up a Triple Crown against him.