Taking a swing at some award predictions

Paul Goldschmidt and Manny Machado finished first and second in National League Most Valuable Player voting in 2022 but didn’t receive a single vote last season.

It wasn’t injuries. Goldschmidt played 154 games and Machado 138.

Corey Seager finished second to

Shohei Ohtani in American League voting last season after not receiving any votes in 2022.

Baseball is a mystery. So don’t take predictions for this season as being rooted in anything but semi-educated guessing. Especially these.

AL MVP: Juan Soto (Yankees). Soto is overdue to win his first MVP and he should benefit from being part of such a dangerous lineup. RBIs still matter for a lot of voters and Soto should pile them up. Gunnar Henderson (Orioles) and Kyle Tucker (Astros) could make a run.

NL MVP: Mookie Betts (Dodgers). If he’s the regular shortstop and puts up another season with huge numbers for a first-place team, who’s going to stop him? Maybe Ronald Acuña Jr. (Braves) or Corbin Carroll (Diamondbacks).

AL Cy Young: Tarik Skubal (Tigers). One common line of conversation among scouts in Florida has been how good Skubal looks. With Gerrit Cole expected to miss at least a month, the door is open for Skubal, Corbin Burnes (Orioles), and Framber Valdez (Astros).

NL Cy Young: Spencer Strider (Braves). At 25, it feels like his time has come after striking out 281 and finishing fourth last season. His competition will come from teammate Max Fried and Zack Wheeler (Phillies).

AL Rookie of the Year: Jackson Holliday (Orioles). An obvious choice, but it’s impossible to ignore his talent. He didn’t make the team out of spring training but could earn a quick promotion. Rangers outfielders Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford will be heard. Maybe some votes for Ceddanne Rafaela of the Red Sox?

NL Rookie of the Year: Jung Hoo Lee (Giants). Experienced players from other professional leagues should not be considered rookies. But they are, so Lee is a solid choice given how well he has hit in spring training. Jackson Chourio of the Brewers could sneak in there and the Dodgers expect big things from

Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

AL Manager of the Year: Matt Quatraro (Royals). There’s a chance the Royals don’t stink. Granted, that’s not a very high bar. But it would be an accomplishment. Alex Cora should get a parade if the Red Sox finish .500.

NL Manager of the Year: Mike Shildt (Padres). San Diego is going to be better than predicted. If nothing else, the expectations aren’t as high. For $8 million a year, Craig Counsell better have the Cubs ready.

On-field story of the season: Rule changes are going to be an issue again. MLB cut two seconds off the pitch clock with no men on base, angering pitchers. Umpires also have been told to call obstruction more aggressively.

There will be a major ruckus if a game gets decided by such a call. It’s bound to happen.

Off-field story of the season:

There’s a brewing civil war within the Players Association as a group of players affiliated with certain agents are trying to oust deputy director Bruce Meyer. Clients of Scott Boras oppose the effort.

The turmoil could lead to the resignation of executive director Tony Clark, who has held the job since 2013.

Harry Marino, who led the successful unionization efforts in the minor leagues before briefly working for the MLBPA, is involved in the dispute. He’s a 33-year-old former minor league player.

QUIET PLEASE? Houck prepares in his own way

One of the unwritten rules of baseball is not to talk to the starting pitcher before the game.

Other than the pitching coach and catcher, the pitcher is supposed to be left alone to contemplate the task at hand. Or something like that.

Tanner Houck, a Midwesterner with the laid-back cool of a California surfer, doesn’t always see it that way. He prepared for a spring training start against the Yankees earlier this month by launching jump shots at the basketball hoop in the clubhouse and challenging Kenley Jansen to a game of HORSE.

“That’s just me,” Houck said after pitching well against New York. “Have some fun each day then go out there and do your job. Just build camaraderie in any way. It’s a long season. I’m always high energy.”

Houck played basketball at Collinsville (Ill.) High through his junior year before devoting himself to baseball.

“I realized my calling,” Houck said. “Baseball was definitely the right option. I started focusing on working out. I knew where I wanted to be and the sacrifices that had to be made. It was a tough decision at the time because I loved playing basketball.”

Houck said Cooper Criswell is the best hooper on the team. Not Jansen? “He tries hard,” Houck said.

A few other observations on the Red Sox:

■ Brayan Bello has a chance to be a very good pitcher. But let’s ease up with the “next Pedro” stuff.

Other than being Dominican and throwing with his right arm, the comparisons end there. There was one Pedro Martinez, a unique blend of intelligence, skill, and competitive fire.

Bello is 14-19 with a 4.37 ERA through his age-24 season. Martinez was 48-31, 3.39 through the same juncture en route to being a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Bello, or any other pitcher, would do well to be half as good as Martinez.

■ The biggest knock on Kutter Crawford last season was that he recorded only 24 outs after the fifth inning. To succeed as a starter long term, he had to condition his body to go deeper into games.

Crawford gained 6 pounds in the offseason and added some bulk. At 6 feet 1 inch, Crawford is considered short for a righthander and needed to offset that with more size.

“He’s stronger. He has bigger legs. That was the main goal in the offseason, physicality,” manager Alex Cora said. “He understands what he needs to do to get to the next level. It’s maintaining the stuff from pitch 80-100.”

■ There’s a decent chance Tyler Heineman, Mark Kolozsvary, and Roberto Perez won’t play for the Sox this season unless Connor Wong or Reese McGuire gets injured. All three are catchers expected to be with Triple A Worcester.

But the Sox see them as valuable players. All three are defensive-minded backstops who can handle a pitching staff and execute a game plan. As the Sox work to develop pitchers, catchers with that skill set are better than batfirst types such as Jorge Alfaro they had at Triple A last season.

“It’s a different group than in the past,” Cora said. “Don’t know if it was on purpose or not, but our catcher group had a different mind-set, more in tune to what we have to do to prevent runs.”

■ The perpetually plain-spoken Nick Pivetta was asked his thoughts on the team’s new pitching program.

“It’s been really good,” he said. “Everybody’s got their own individual plan and what they do best as a pitcher. It’s about how we get to those pitches as quickly as possible and execute those pitches in the zone and get some swings and misses.

“I think the fundamental [aspect] is very strong and it allows guys to be free and compete. Hitting is extremely hard. It’s not an easy thing to do, even though they make it look easy at times.

“So having confidence in the zone is very important.”

■ Pivetta and Lucas Giolito were teammates in 2013 with the Gulf Coast League Nationals, who went 49-9. They also were teammates in High A in 2015 until Pivetta was traded to the Phillies on July 28 for Jonathan Papelbon.

“We had the same agent [Ryan Hamill of CAA] and worked out together,” Pivetta said. “I was really excited when [the Red Sox] traded for him. It’s nice to have one of my better friends around.”

■ Second baseman Vaughn Grissom has been the invisible man in this camp, spending most of his time working behind the scenes because of groin and hamstring injuries.

That could change soon. Grissom was on the field Thursday going through an agility workout and was moving well. But with the Sox leaving Fort Myers on Sunday, he’ll likely stay in extended spring training for a bit before joining an affiliate to get at-bats.

It’s unlikely Grissom will play in a major league game until late April, and that could be optimistic.

■ Last week’s column mentioned the auction of the player murals at old McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket. The top sellers were Carlton Fisk ($3,200), Roger Clemens ($2,900), Jim Rice ($2,600), and Wade Boggs ($1,900). An apparently huge fan of Oil Can Boyd dropped $2,500 on his mural. On the low end,

Todd Benzinger fetched $100 and Steve Lyons $200.

Proceeds went to the city of Pawtucket and charities in the city.

■ Tickets for the Red Sox Hall of Fame induction on May 29 at Fenway Park are on sale at redsox.com/fenwayhonors. Trot Nixon, Papelbon, Dustin Pedroia, and front office pioneer Elaine Weddington Steward will be honored. There also will be a special presentation in honor of Tim and Stacy Wakefield.

The event is expected to start at 6:45 p.m. Proceeds will benefit the Red Sox Foundation.

ETC. Gambling scandal shakes up game

The story that translator Ippei Mizuhara was allegedly stealing money from Shohei Ohtani to pay off gambling debts doesn’t add up.

Because California doesn’t have legalized sports betting, Mizuhara reportedly placed bets through a bookie who is now under federal investigation.

There’s little chance a bookie would let somebody employed as a translator run up $3.4 million in losses unless he knew the debt would get paid.

And wouldn’t Ohtani’s agent or financial advisers notice that much money was missing and raise a red flag? Mizuhara is a close friend of Ohtani, more like a personal assistant than simply a translator. But you must be some kind of friend to be able to access $3.4 million.

Mizuhara is a relatively famous figure within baseball because he rarely left Ohtani’s side. How did the Angels never find out a team employee was gambling millions with a bookie? How did the Dodgers not discover this when he was hired a few months ago?

MLB will want this to go away quickly. But there’s a lot there.

Whatever shakes out, this is the latest warning to Major League Baseball and other sports. As gambling becomes legalized in more states and teams partner with sports books, larger scandals are inevitable.

There’s no evidence Ohtani was involved and Mizuhara denies betting on baseball. But if the most notable player in the sport can be affected so directly, the threat is real.

Teams clearly have to do a better job of vetting employees and controlling who is around players at the ballpark or associated with the team.

Extra bases

New Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto has started four games including three in spring training. His line: 10„ innings, 19 hits, 14 earned runs, 5 walks, 16 strikeouts, 2 wild pitches, 1 hit batter. The strikeouts are evidence why Los Angeles signed him to a 12year, $325 million contract. But his command has been erratic, which could be the result of MLB using a different ball than Nippon Professional Baseball. Yamamoto’s first pitch in a regular-season game came against the Padres in South Korea and was crushed by Xander Bogaerts for a single with an exit velocity of 105.4 miles per hour. Yamamoto threw 43 pitches, allowed five runs, and was pulled after one inning . . . Bogaerts, by the way, has a hit in five countries: the United States, Canada, England, Mexico, and South Korea. He tied a record held by Edgardo Alfonzo and Paul Goldschmidt ... Eduardo Rodriguez is dealing with lat tightness in his pitching shoulder, but the Diamondbacks don’t feel it’s serious. Rodriguez had a 3.30 ERA in 26 starts for the Tigers last season and should benefit greatly from working with Arizona pitching coach Brent Strom. The early returns have been positive. Rodriguez also has exhibited leadership . . . The Braves signed 35-year-old Adam Duvall to platoon with 24-year-old Jarred Kelenic in left field. Kelenic has had a rough spring training at the plate ... Alex Verdugo paid for haircuts for any player on the Yankees roster with two years or less of service time. It was his way of fitting into the team’s culture. Verdugo also had a meeting with manager Aaron Boone to ask how many chains he could wear during games. The answer was one . . . Tampa Bay righthander Aaron Civale has faced the Red Sox in Cleveland, St. Petersburg, Fla., Fort Myers, Fla., and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, but never in Boston. The former Northeastern pitcher grew up a Sox fan and lives on Cape Cod. He’s hoping to get a start at Fenway this season . . . Nate Eovaldi will be the Opening Day starter for the Rangers. It would be the righthander’s fourth such assignment in five years going back to his time with the Red Sox. Not retaining Eovaldi after the 2022 season was a bad decision by the Sox and has gotten worse over time . . . Andy Pettitte plans to be around the Yankees for 50 games or so this season to help with the pitching staff. It’s his biggest step back into baseball since retiring after the 2013 season. Joe Torre, who hasn’t had much to do with the Yankees since essentially being fired in 2007, was in camp this past week and even put on a uniform at the behest of Boone and made a pitching change. Torre, 83, is a special assistant to commissioner Rob Manfred and vice chairman of the Hall of Fame . . . MLB named All-Star teams for its Spring Breakout series. The second team included Cardinals outfielder Joshua Baez, a Boston native who attended the Dexter School in Brookline. Baez was 1 for 3 with a homer and a walk against the Marlins. Baez was a second-round pick in 2021 who has hit .219 but with a .344 OBP and 50 extra-base hits in 475 at-bats. Marlins lefthander Thomas White, a 19-year-old out of Phillips Andover, also made the second team. He threw a scoreless first inning against the Cardinals and struck out three. He was a supplemental first-round pick last year . . . Happy birthday to Bruce Hurst, who is 66. The lefty was 88-73 with a 4.23 earned run average for the Red Sox from 1980-88. He was fifth in AL Cy Young Award voting in 1988 after winning 18 games, then signed with the Padres as a free agent. Hurst was magnificent in the 1986 World Series. He allowed two earned runs over 17 innings to win Games 1 and 5 and would have been MVP had the Sox not blown Game 6. Starting on three days’ rest for Game 7, Hurst lasted six innings and allowed three runs, leaving the game when it was 3-3. A soft-spoken native of Utah, Hurst had some rough patches early in his career, even temporarily quitting the game while in Triple A in 1981. But he finished his 15-year career with 145 wins . . . This is the 250th of these columns I’ve done since Nick Cafardo died in 2019. He remains very much missed, especially with another season starting.