Inspired by some of the MLB discussion last night in AMARTIN's thread, I want to do the next paragraph as Chris Berman:
What a long, strange trip it's been, to quote the late, great Jerry Garcia. Teams like the Angels and Red Sox, with expectations as high as their payrolls, proved what Pink Floyd knew all too well - plans that either come to naught, or half a page of scribbled lines. But the season was not all disappointments; players like Bryce Harper "Lager" and Mike "Rainbow" Trout proved as good as advertised, or even better, and Gio "Metro" Gonzalez proved to be a worthy Robin to Stephen Strasburg's Batman. And in Boston, every day was Valentine's day, though Cupid was always in a foul mood. In the National League...

Ok fuck this. I can't stand Chris Berman. So here's our end of the season final rankings. I'll point out now before people freak out, but these were done before Oakland ran the tables on Texas and took the AL West, and even so, these rankings are about the whole body of work, not the final week of the season.

This time, each ranker was given a division to focus their writeups on, so we could all challenge ourselves. I took the AL East, which was a challenge because I have seen only 3 baseball games in the last 2 years that didn't involve the D-Backs. Krs took the AL Central, which is painful as he is a Twins fan. Gamma took the AL West, which proved to be the hardest of all, as he hadn't even heard of Mike Trout until I asked him to rank the Angels. For the NL, NYY took the West, which actually was pretty easy, for he is a huge Giants fan as you can tell by his screen name. KellyKipp took the NL Central, as he has boycotted NL West all games since his mancrush Melky was suspended. A couple of people were offered the NL East, but surprisingly turned it down, so that will be a mix of the hipster kipster and myself.

We also voted as a group on the postseason awards. I know the AL MVP has already been debated at length in OT, but we're hoping to spark more discussion (that is if anyone still reads baseball threads during football season)...

1: Washington Nationals
MVP – Gio Gonzalez: Led the great pitching staff in pWAR, and carried the torch when Strasburg was shut down.
Anti-MVP – those who thought it was best to shut down Strasburg: A girl who broke up with me when I went back to college quoted a Star Wars prequel to explain why she was going to bang a cook at Ground Round once I left, and it applies here as well:
Obi-Wan: But Master Yoda said I need to be mindful of the future.
Qui-Gon: But not at the expense of the moment.

2: Texas Rangers
The Rangers have an excellent lineup and bullpen, but their starting rotation has some huge question marks entering the postseason.
MVP’s – Yu Darvish/Adrian Beltre: Darvish has been worth every penny down the stretch, but after him, who can you really count on in October? Beltre has been incredible for the Rangers, and as long as his sore shoulder doesn’t slow him down, expect a big showing in the postseason.
Anti-MVP – Matt Harrison: With the exception of a couple of starts against Seattle, Harrison has struggled to work deep into games in the month of September.

3: Cincinnati Reds
MVP - Ryan Hanigan: A little off the reservation here, but in a season where their 2 best hitters missed time, and their manager was...well, was Dusty Baker, their staff was a rock all year. Props to the guy who won the job and helped make a lot of people look good.
Anti-MVP - Drew Stubbs - 6' 4 inches and 205 pounds of pure suck and getting worse; if players do hit their prime years starting at 27, I look forward to him failing in the Atlantic League by sometime next June.

4: Atlanta Braves
MVP – Jason Heyward: Solid bounce back year after a sophomore slump.
Anti-MVP – Brian McCann: Last season we were ready to crown him the best catcher in baseball. Welp.

5: New York Yankees
They sure hit a lot of home runs, but their age has shown down the stretch, and there are questions about the rotation.
MVP – Robinson Cano. Although he took his annual 2 months off post all-star break this year, instead of April and May, he still put up insane numbers.
Anti-MVP – Alex Rodriguez. With all due respect to Mark Teixeira, A-Rod has been a bigger disappointment this year, and Brian Cashman is making constant calls to the Dodgers to see if they’re in the market for a third baseman.

6: San Francisco Giants
Yet another excellent season, even with battling considerable adversity between Brian Wilson's absence, Tim Lincecum's struggles, and the meteoric rise and collapse of Melky Cabrera.
MVP - Buster Posey: Early season MVP goes down, Buster responds with an OPS hovering around 1.100 in the second half. Enough Said.
Anti MVP - Melky Cabrera: Hard to let your team down with a more selfish series of actions than he had.

7: Oakland A’s
The A’s have played like a team possessed. I’m still not exactly sure how the A’s did it, of course there’s the excellent starting pitching and bullpen, but I’m going to have to give some credit to the A’s new hitting coach, Chili Davis.
MVP – Yoenis Cespedes: The A’s are 12-22 without him in the lineup.
Anti-MVP – Jemile Weeks: After showing promise in his rookie season, he took a dump to the tune of .221/.305/.304 with 2 HR, and provided the same amount of wins as a replacement level player.

16: Philadelphia Phillies
MVP – Carlos Ruiz: In a big year for offense from the catcher position, Carlos Ruiz put his name in any conversation that starts behind Yadi.
Anti-MVP: Placido Polanco - he epitomizes the 2012 Phillies - broken down, old, and tired. If he ever plays another MLB game, I'll walk to New Haven and slap the joint out of AMartin's lazy ass mouth.

17: Milwaukee Brewers
MVP – Ryan Braun: Did he do roids? yes. Did he get away with it because he is white? yes. Is there anything better to do after a game in Milwaukee than shoot yourself in the ass with a needle? No.
Anti MVP - John Axford; was supposed to be a strength, but was a nightmare all year in that dump of a city. What a clown too - every time I see this idiot's mug, I wish Jeffrey Dahmer performed encores. Did I mention Milwaukee is a dump?

18: Pittsburgh Pirates
MVP - Andrew McCutchen: To pull from ye olde cliche handbook, he is a real 5 tool stud; the Yankees future is looking bright.
Anti MVP - Erik Bedard: being released by the Pittsburgh Pirates is like getting rejected by the girl with the neck halo.

19: New York Mets
MVP – David Wright:Between losing Reyes, the Madoff mess, and Ike going CPT on the start of the season, Wright was out there day after day playing as if he was actually proud to be wearing a Mets uniform; no easy task.
Anti-MVP – Tsxxx04: You can’t just up and quit when times are tough.

20: Toronto Blue Jays
If their entire rotation hadn’t fallen apart, they might have been able to make things interesting for Baltimore and New York down the stretch.
MVP – Edwin Encarnacion: Huge season, especially with the absence of Joey Bats. 42 HR and an OPS of .941.
Anti-MVP – Ricky Romero: 9-14, 5.77 ERA. Yeah I know, LOL W/L and ERA, but let’s shelf that for a moment and just LOL Romero instead.

21: San Diego Padres
Better than expected, but they still have a pretty good way to go.
MVP - Chase Headley: Pretty obvious choice. His name will be an interesting one to follow over the next year or so.
Anti MVP - Cory Luebke: Sub-par performance and a short season after building up hope with a breakout 2011 campaign.

22: Seattle Mariners
Need offensive help in the worst way. This is a club that is stacked with enormous talent at starting pitching, Taijuan Walker, Danny Hultzen and James Paxton all have the potential to make huge impacts at the big league level, but with the exception of Mike Zunino, I just don’t see a lot of impact bats in their system.
MVP – Felix Hernandez: (no writeup needed)
Anti-MVP – Ichiro Suzuki: Oh, so you wait until you’re on the Yankees before you start to hit?

23: Kansas City Royals
MVP – Alex Gordon: Happy for the Royals that this guy panned out. Not much to get excited about on this team
Anti-MVP – Jeff Francoeur: Like I would pick anyone else

24: Boston Red Sox
This season has been the worst thing I have ever had to go through as a sports fan. Can’t wait for them to sign Hamilton in the offseason for 7 years, $146 million.
MVP – John Lackey: Never has not being there meant so much. How much more of a shit show would 2012 have been with him on the hill every 5 days?
Anti-MVP – Jon Lester: Maybe Beckett peer-pressured him into fried chicken and rally beers last year, but with all the talent he has shown over the years, he should have come into 2012 with something to prove. Instead, he left fans feeling like Ving Rhames in Pulp Fiction after Zed had his way with him, but there was no rescue from Bruce Willis.

Wait, so I was the only one who voted for RA Dickey?

I'm pretty shocked - seriously

two people picked gio gonzalez over dickey ?

quick explanation plz

 

Originally Posted by AMARTIN1181

AL MVP: CABRERA
AL CY: VERLANDER
AL ROY: TROUT
AL MANAGER: MELVIN

NL MVP: POSEY
NL CY: DICKEY FACE
NL ROY: HARPER
NL MANAGER: JOHNSON

Give al cy young to Rodney instead if verlander and these are my picks also

Melvin and Showalter should share MOTY. Both were equally great this year and are equally deserving. For Showalter, for his team to win so many one-run games and extra inning games, and to win as many games as they did with such a tiny run differential...that says a ton about the strings he pulled as a manager. On the other hand, you have to hand it to Melvin (always LOVED him as Mariners manager and thought he never should have been fired) for getting his guys to play the way they did. They played with an energy and grit that stem from the top down. The way the Yanks complained about their "lack of professionalism" is the kind of enthusiasm that can propel a young team to win.

And WTF at one person out of five picking Dickey?

 

Originally Posted by marinersheep

For Showalter, for his team to win so many one-run games and extra inning games, and to win as many games as they did with such a tiny run differential...that says a ton about luck

fyp

:)

I picked Gio, but it was probably the hardest award to pick out of the bunch. I went back and forth and tbh, it was so close that I deferred to fWAR and FIP (xFIP was super close).

 

Originally Posted by gamma21

I picked Gio, but it was probably the hardest award to pick out of the bunch. I went back and forth and tbh, it was so close that I deferred to fWAR and FIP (xFIP was super close).

I picked Kershaw, followed by Dickey. Innings pitched separated those two from Gio.

I swear to fucking god, I love Trout but if you don't give the MVP to a guy who's actually in the playoffs and won the triple fucking crown for the first time in 45 years, you're fucking retarded.

 

Originally Posted by goofy2485

I swear to fucking god, I love Trout but if you don't give the MVP to a guy who's actually in the playoffs and won the triple fucking crown for the first time in 45 years, you're fucking retarded.

Been covered a million times already...but arbitrary stats mean very, very little. And Trout's team won more games in a tougher division.

So yah...no

Valentine for MOTY

Even if he was healthy all year, Carpenter is no longer an ace. Was he even a top 20 pitcher last year? Or the year before?

I think it would be cool to see who each of the other 5 rankers voted for.

Just so all the WARtards know where to point and laugh, I was the one who voted Cabrera MVP. Looked at your fancy WAR, saw Cano ahead of Cabrera, and stopped looking.

Here was my ballot:
AL MVP - Miguel Cabrera
AL Cy Young - Jered Weaver
AL ROY - Mike Trout
AL MOTY - Buck Showalter

NL MVP - Buster Posey
NL Cy Young - RA Dickey
NL ROY - Wade Miley
NL MOTY - Fredi Gonzalez

This is going to be a great AL MVP vote, we should get a pretty good idea how much consideration advanced stats are being given these days in the MVP discussion.

I would be pretty shocked if MCab doesn't get it with a triple crown, but we will know who's looking past the counting stats based on how many 1st place votes Trout gets.

Also, Kimbrel was the Braves MVP imo, and he had a pretty epic season that I think should get Cy Young consideration.

One of my favorite posters on another Braves Forum posted this on 9/15:

"Some current historical rankings for Kimbrel '12, not counting today's performance:

FIP: 0.87, #2 all time (Gagne '03 - 0.86)
xFIP: 0.86, #1 since 2002, when xFIP started being calculated (#2 is Gagne '03, at 1.18)
K/9: 16.73, #1 all time (Jansen '11 - 16.1)
K%: 51.0%, #1 all time (Chapman '12 - 45.4%, Gagne '03 - 44.8%)
WHIP: 0.66, #3 all time (Eckersley '89 and '90 - 0.61)


Kimbrel's FIP compared to the career bests of some decent relievers:

Kimbrel 2012: 0.87

Eckersley 1990: 1.34
Papelbon 2011: 1.53
Smoltz 2003: 1.54
K-Rod 2004: 1.64
Wagner 1999: 1.65
Rivera 1996: 1.88"

Kimbrel has kept that pace up and even improved his strikeout rate if you can believe that (2 4K innings since then!).

Kimbrel just had one of, if not the greatest season in the history of baseball for a reliever.