San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
John Shea:
Sizing up end-of-season awards.
How can a reliever win a Cy Young Award? For that matter, how can a designated hitter win an MVP award?
The answer is similar for both questions: When a reliever’s or DH’s season has been historically good and the respective field is merely so-so.
This year, we’ve been treated to fabulous seasons by A’s closer Blake Treinen and Red Sox DH J.D. Martinez, both of whom are in the conversation for the American League’s top individual awards.
Treinen was the main reason the A’s won their first 68 games when leading after seven innings and he has an 0.78 ERA and 38 saves. The right-hander isn’t merely a one-inning pitcher, as his 801⁄3 innings in 68 appearances demonstrate.
Martinez was a Triple Crown candidate for most of the season (.329, 42 homers, 127 RBIs), though he’ll fall well behind A’s DH Khris Davis in homers and, probably, behind Boston teammate Mookie Betts in batting average.
Neither the A’s nor Red Sox would be where they are today without Treinen and Martinez, and both should get ample love on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballots. But the competition is stacked.
Betts is everything Martinez has been, plus he plays the outfield (very well, in fact) and runs the bases (ditto). That he’s the second 30-30 player in Red Sox history and likely a batting champ (and Gold Glover) shows his wide-ranging tools as the best overall player on the best team. He’s your MVP, with apologies to Houston’s Alex Bregman, Cleveland’s Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor and, as usual, the Angels’ Mike Trout.
Along with A’s teammates Davis and Matt Chapman.
Davis leads the majors with 48 homers and is second with 123 RBIs, and his value is illustrated with his 21 homers that gave the A’s a lead and 19 that came in the seventh inning or later. Aside from his spectacular play at third base, Chapman has been an elite hitter since the All-Star break, batting .310 with 14 homers and 39 RBIs, also leading the majors in doubles and ranking second in extra-base hits and runs.
Treinen has mass competition for the Cy Young. Several starters have been stellar, but we’re leaning toward Tampa Bay’s Blake Snell over Houston’s Justin Verlander, Cleveland’s Corey Kluber and Trevor Bauer and Boston’s Chris Sale, who was the favorite until a shoulder injury detoured his season in August, along with Treinen, the majors’ most effective closer.
Snell has 21 wins and the lowest ERA (1.89) — also the lowest batting average and OPS allowed — and the only knock is that he has pitched 1802 innings, far fewer than Kluber’s 215 and Verlander’s 208.
Snell plays for a team that introduced bullpenning, which significantly de-emphasizes a starter’s value and makes it far tougher for him to earn a win. Still, Snell won nine straight starts, which was done just twice previously, by Bob Gibson in 1968 and Johan Santana in 2004. Both Gibson and Santana won the Cy Young unanimously.
One more on Snell: He’s 9-2 with a 2.00 ERA in 12 starts against the league’s top five offenses (Red Sox, Yankees, Indians, Astros, A’s), and no other candidate has faced these teams more than six times.
As for Treinen, who could appear on some of the 10-man MVP ballots, his ERA is the lowest in history among pitchers with at least 75 innings. He had a 131⁄3-inning hitless streak end last weekend, and opponents are hitting .103 with runners in scoring position and are 4 for their past 57.
Treinen likely could follow in the footsteps of then-Baltimore closer Zach Britton, whose historic season in 2016 (0.54 ERA, 47 saves, 60 appearances) got him a fourth-place finish in the Cy Young voting. It would have helped Treinen’s and Martinez’s candidacies had the field been so-so, but it’s not. It doesn’t mean each shouldn’t be well-represented on the ballots. NL MVP: Christian Yelich tops the league in average, on-base percentage and OPS, not to mention his 36 homers and 21 steals. More than that, he’s a driving force in the Brewers’ journey to the playoffs, especially down the stretch; September has been his best month. Cases have been made for Atlanta’s Freddie Freeman, St. Louis’ Matt Carpenter, Chicago’s Javier Baez, Arizona’s Paul Goldschmidt and Colorado’s Nolan Arenado, but Yelich’s all-around contributions to a team that rarely sniffs the postseason shouldn’t be disregarded.
NL Cy Young: Washington’s Max Scherzer struck out nearly everyone he saw, more than 300 victims in all, but New York’s Jacob deGrom gets the award despite just 10 wins because of his ridiculous ERA (1.70) and .521 OPS against. You’ve heard of getting Cained? It’s nothing like getting deGrommed. Usually with no wiggle room on the scoreboard, deGrom consistently pitched in tight games because the Mets didn’t get him run support. Scherzer, Philadelphia’s Aaron Nola and Colorado’s Kyle Freeland get well-deserved attaboys.
AL Rookie of the Year: It’s clearly the Angels’ Shohei Ohtani, though we’ll acknowledge Yankees infielders Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar and former A’s second baseman Joey Wendle (now with the Rays), none of whom posted an OPS above .900, like Ohtani, let alone a 3.30 ERA and 63 strikeouts in 10 starts, like Ohtani.
NL Rookie of the Year: It wasn’t long ago we were on the Juan Soto bandwagon because of his historic teenage season with the Nationals, but we’ve flipped to another fabulous hitter, Ronald Acuña Jr. — who’s all of 20 — not only because of his speed-power combination (26 homers, 16 steals despite missing a month with a knee injury) but his impact on the stunning, division-winning Braves.
AL Manager of the Year: Can anyone really make an argument against the A’s Bob Melvin? We’ve heard about Boston’s Alex Cora, but the Red Sox didn’t finish in last place the previous three years, open the season with the majors’ lowest payroll and reach the playoffs with a rotation off the scrap heap. Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash did a lot with a little, but Melvin is in a league of his own.
NL Manager of the Year: Kudos to Atlanta’s Brian Snitker, who’s a heck of a story, but any manager who can keep a mile-high team in the running the final weekend for a division title (it would be the Rockies’ first) is doing extraordinary things. Freeland’s ERA is 2.84, for goodness sakes, and 2.73 in Coors Field. Bud Black it is.
John Shea is The San Francisco Chronicle’s national baseball writer. Email: jshea@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnSheaHey