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The awards are being announced throughout the week.
The Rawlings Gold Glove Award winners were announced this weekend, and if you missed them you can’t be blamed. For some reason, the BBWAA announced that award on a Sunday night (opposite football) more than a week before the rest of this year’s MLB awards will be handed out and before the other nominees were even announced. If you missed any of the winners, you can find them here.
While that means it feels like we should be getting the other awards a lot sooner, we actually have a couple of days to debate who didn’t even receive a nomination but should have, and brave for the inevitable moment for when your favorite player doesn’t take home some hardware. Prepare your arguments now. You have plenty of time.
The finalists for the Cy Young, MVP and others were announced last week and the winners in each category will be announced throughout the week.
AL Rookie of the Year
- Miguel Andujar— Yankees
- Shohei Ohtani — Angels WINNER
- Gleyber Torres — Yankees
NL Rookie of the Year
- Ronald Acuña, Jr. — Braves WINNER
- Juan Soto — Nationals
- Walker Buehler— Dodgers
Shohei Ohtani, who will be out all of 2019 after undergoing Tommy John surgery, wins AL Rookie of the Year with 25 of the 30 first place votes. Acuña did him two better with 27 first place votes to take the honor in the NL.
AL Manager of the Year
- Kevin Cash— Rays
- Bob Melvin — A’s WINNER
- Alex Cora— Red Sox
NL Manager of the Year
- Bud Black — Rockies
- Craig Counsell — Brewers
- Brian Snitker — Braves WINNER
Snitker becomes the first Braves manager not named Bobby Cox to win for Atlanta, and makes sense based on how far ahead of schedule the team turned out to be this year. The A’s needed a lot of luck over the summer but exceeded expectations with Bob Melvin leading the way as well. This entire process is broken but congrats to those guys.
AL Cy Young
NL Cy Young
- Jacob deGrom— Mets
- Aaron Nola— Phillies
- Max Scherzer— Nationals
AL Most Valuable Player
- Mookie Betts — Red Sox
- Jose Ramirez — Indians
- Mike Trout — Angels
NL Most Valuable Player
- Nolan Arenado — Rockies
- Javy Baez — Cubs
- Christian Yelich — Brewers
Two Yankees get the AL Rookie of the Year nod in Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar in a group that has no surprises, and NL Rookie of the Year is a similarly expected bunch with Soto, Acuña, and Buehler all making the final cut. What a strong, fun year for rookies.
Unsurprisingly, the man who managed the Red Sox to a World Series in his rookie season is here in the form of Alex Cora. Dave Roberts didn’t make the cut for Manager of the Year for leading the Dodgers back to the Fall Classic opposite Cora’s Sox, for obvious reasons though. Black, Counsell, and Snitker are all worthy candidates in that category.
The only “maybe” in the Cy Young categories was whether Chris Sale would sneak in as the third finalist, but the end of his season mostly doomed him there. The six finalists all had excellent seasons, and if deGrom doesn’t win for the National League we march at dawn.
Both of the MVP categories seem like they are already decided at this point, with both Yelich and Betts indeed in the final group as expected. Not that there can’t be surprises, but those are wins that nobody could really quibble with this year. Baez’s inclusion in the top three is a nice surprise but he probably won’t go the distance there, and Betts is all but a foregone conclusion at this point. Especially now that we know J.D. Martinez is not a finalist so is less likely to have taken a lot of votes away from Betts if that is indeed how some voters were thinking.
Tune in next week when we find out who won!