ASTROS EYE HISTORY
AP
The Associated Press
Alex BregmAn will try to give the Houston Astros an unprecedented sweep. If the All-Star slugger is selected the American league’s most Valuable Player when voting results are announced Thursday, the Astros will become the first team to have a mVP, Cy Young Award winner and rookie of the Year in the same season.
Justin Verlander took Cy Young honors, and Yordan Álvarez was a unanimous pick as the Al’s top rookie.
mike Trout is probably Bregman’s | Friday, November 15, 2019 mirror_sports@yahoo.com.ph Editor: Jun Lomibao
ntop competition, and the national league (nl) mVP figures to come down to Cody Bellinger of the Dodgers or Christian Yelich of the Brewers, with Anthony rendon of the nationals also a worthy finalist.
Both mVP races were impacted by injuries. Trout was having another spectacular year for the los Angeles Angels when right foot problems ended his season early. He did not play after September 7, and was limited to 134 games.
Trout still finished with a career-high 45 home runs, along with a .291 batting average, 104 rBIs, 110 runs and a 1.083 OPS. Trout won mVP awards in 2014 and 2016, and has finished in the top 2 in the voting six of the past seven years.
Bregman, however, has a strong case after his Houston team finished with a major league-best 107 wins. He hit .296 with 41 home runs, 112 rBIs, 122 runs and 119 walks. He also showed versatility by playing third base and shortstop.
Bregman played in 156 games, and that extra availability helped him match Trout in wins above replacement, a stat that always reflects well on the los Angeles outfielder. Bregman finished at 8.4 WAr and Trout at 8.3, according to Baseballreference.com.
In the nl, Bellinger finished at 9.0 WAr and Yelich at 7.1, although the eW YOrK—Justin Verlander has a second American league (Al) Cy Young Award—and a clear path paved toward Cooperstown.
Verlander beat out Houston Astros teammate gerrit Cole in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America revealed Wednesday night. Verlander got 17 first-place votes to 13 for Cole, who became a free agent after the season.
mets ace Jacob degrom won the national league (nl) prize for the second straight year. He received 29 of 30 first-place votes, becoming the 11th pitcher to win Cy Youngs in consecutive years. He and Verlander are the 20th and 21st players to win the award multiple times.
The 36-year-old, Verlander, won his first Cy Young in 2011 with Detroit, when he was also named mVP. Since then, he’d been a runner-up three times.
“The adversity I went through puts a new perspective on everything,”he said.“I mean, still would’ve liked to have won a couple of them.”
Verlander continued a marvelous second act to his career since a 2017 trade from Detroit to Houston. He led the majors with 21 victories and padded his Hall of Fame resume by getting his 3,000th strikeout in his final start of the regular season. He also reached 300 punchouts in a season for the first time.
Verlander no-hit Toronto on September 1, becoming the sixth pitcher with three no-hitters in a career. He joined a group that includes Hall of Famers nolan ryan, Sandy
FanGraphs.com version of WAr has those two neck and neck. Again, availability was an issue. Yelich broke his kneecap late in the season and wasn’t able to play during the Brewers’ run to an nl wild card.
Yelich still might have done enough to win a second straight mVP award. The milwaukee outfielder hit 44 home runs and won the so-called slash line Triple Crown by leading the nl in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.
Yelich played in only 130 games, though. That’s not a deal breaker—Barry Bonds was the nl mVP in 2003 with 130 games played, and just last year, mookie Betts of Boston won the Al award despite playing in only 136. But it may be hard for Yelich to beat out Bellinger, who led the nl in total bases and hit .305 with 47 homers in 156 games, while playing excellent defense.
Bellinger would be the first position player for the Dodgers to win mVP honors since Kirk gibson in 1988, the year of the team’s most recent World Series title.
rendon is another nl contender. He emerged as the World Series champion nationals fought their way to the postseason after a poor start. The voting is done before the playoffs, so rendon’s postseason performance won’t be a factor, but he’d already done plenty before that.
The 29-year-old third baseman hit .319 this year with 34 homers, and led the nl in doubles and rBIs.
Koufax, Bob Feller and Cy Young, along with 1880s pitcher larry Corcoran.
Forget about slowing down—Verlander’s goal this off-season is to add velocity to his top-end fastball. He’s thinking about using weighted balls and other new age throwing techniques.
“I will always try to push the boundaries of what I can do,”Verlander said. “If my body says, ‘Hold on, you can’t do that anymore,’ then I’ll pull back.”
The case between Verlander and Cole was tight. Cole had more strikeouts (326) and a lower erA (2.50), but Verlander threw 10 2/3 more innings and won more games. They are the first set of teammates to finish 1-2 in Al voting—it’s happened five times in the nl.
Verlander and Cole pitched Houston to the World Series, where Cole continued to dominate while Verlander faltered. The righthander lost twice to the champion Washington nationals—a letdown not factored in voting that concluded before the postseason began.
He’s hoping to take another run at a title—with Cole—next season.
“I know that gerrit had a great time playing here and I know he would like to return, if possible,”Verlander said.“But that is now on gerrit and his family and people above me.”
Tampa Bay rays righty Charlie morton finished third a year after leaving Houston in free agency.
Degrom is in special company as a repeat nl winner, joining Koufax, greg maddux, randy Johnson, Tim lincecum, Clayton Kershaw and max Scherzer.
“It was a dream to play this game and a dream to win one Cy Young,” degrom said. “To win back-to-back was a goal. It’s hard to explain. You set these goals, but it almost doesn’t feel real, yet.”
The 31-year-old led the nl with 255 strikeouts and posted a 2.43 erA. His resume was bolstered by his durability—degrom totaled 204 innings, compared to 182 2/3 for runner-up Hyun-Jin ryu and 172 1/3 for Scherzer, the nationals ace who finished third.
A year after taking the award despite just 10 victories—fewest ever by a starting pitcher—degrom earned 11 wins with a mets team that’s struggled to support him.
After signing a $137.5-million, five-year deal to remain with new York, shortly before opening day, degrom wasn’t so dominant early in the season. He got hit around in April and may, even allowing seven runs in an outing against the last-place marlins.
The embarrassment in miami was a wakeup call for the gritty degrom. Following that loss, he went 8-3 with a 1.89 erA over his final 23 starts. Degrom wrapped up the season with 23 consecutive scoreless innings.
“I feel like I was trying to better what I did in 2018,” he said, adding “I think that was something I struggled with to start this year, was kind of dwelling on what happened last year. Kind of not focusing on the task ahead as much as I probably should have.”