Ladies & Gentlemen (I’m imagining a world where women are reading this blog), welcome to the 1st annual WBEABAs (Written By An Englishman Baseball Awards)! I think its pronounced Wa-Beebas, although I’m already seeing future problems when we come to the end of the basketball season and I have to think of another acronym. Onwards.

Over a delicious meal and a few pints of beer, myself (Jake Grant) and friend/hopefully soon-to-be guest writer (Will Saunders), hashed out the end of the baseball season and picked our own winners for each of the major awards. Its important to note that these selections do not take into account individual defence, as my analysis extends very little beyond fantasy baseball value at this point. I did at least have an MLB.tv subscription this year, so was able to view these players in their natural environment and beyond the numbers and stock photos of an ESPN page.

Clear breakout candidate for AL ROY is Jose Abreu, gaining the double sign-off from Will and myself. I made the colossal mistake of trading Abreu about two weeks into the year, believing I was ‘selling high’ by getting Chris Tillman in exchange. I believed he would be a sub .250 hitter who would hit 30+ homers but go through hot and cold streaks, a Pedro Alvarez (who was also on my team). Instead, he hit .317 with a .581 slugging percentage and made me sad every time I looked at his player page – like looking at your ex’s Facebook page after you break up even though you know it’s a bad idea. The NL is less clear cut but I went with deGrom over Hamilton. The argument in favour of Hamilton is his whole season, SBs, defence and hitting for slightly more power than expected. That’s fine, but when deGrom pitched, he pitched exceedingly well. How good is your good? deGrom’s was excellent, Hamilton’s good was just good.

I went with King Felix over Kluber for Cy Young. Felix pitched better this year than in his 2010 Cy Young season. Corey Kluber should be renamed Korey Kluber because he gets so many K’s. A 10.27 K/9 for the year. Clayton Kershaw is the unanimous NL selection. Pretty easy, pretty self-explanatory. Move on. Feel bad for Johnny Cueto though. A fully healthy season and he really proved himself. But still around 0.5 points behind Kershaw in ERA.

Another split vote, another unanimous vote for MVP. Mike Trout. As a Phillies fan, I’m counting down the years until he comes home and joins us in 2020. Its about the only thing I have to look forward as a Phillies fan so don’t take it away from me! I lucked into the no.1 pick in a fantasy league this year and thoroughly enjoyed my ride on the Trout Train. Most evenings when I went to bed, he had yet to play and I shut down my laptop excited about what his line could possibly be when I woke up in the morning. I was rarely disappointed. I can’t really add much to the pages and pages of “Mike Trout is a transcendent player” articles out there already on the web, so I’ll just say “Wow!”. I picked Stanton in the NL, mostly because he was a super fun player to watch and everytime he swung, I thought it was going out of the stadium. I’m not one of those “Pitchers can only win Cy Young” guys, but given by previous “How good is your good?” comment, I’m pondering why I didn’t just give this to Kershaw. Move on before I’m forced to seriously reconsider and change my article and carefully constructed tables…

Manager of the Year, another category I know little about. As a relatively new fan of baseball (2-3 years), I’m still trying to work out the value of a manager beyond picking the batting order, showing up every night and giving encouraging words to your guys to give 110% and “just have fun out there”, etc. I realise there’s tactics involved with other sorts of decisions but it seems far less important a position than in other major sports. When I used to pick winners for Manager of the Year for other sports I followed, I tended to eschew the League Winner = Best Manager narrative as much as possible, preferring to look at expectations vs. results and who did what with less. That mostly feeds in to my pick of Ned Yost of KC, constructing the best bullpen in baseball with Wade Davis and Greg Holland, an incredible OF defence (second mention of defence!) and the Royals’ first playoff berth since before I was even born. Becoming the first team in MLB history to make the playoffs while finishing last in the majors in Homer Runs and Walks is an incredible and downright absurd achievement, but hey, whatever works. You go Yost! Granted he still has to win a Wild Card game to really make the playoffs but I’m a believer. And now, to contrast everything I just wrote in this paragraph, my second Manager of the Year award goes to the guy with the best record in the NL…Matt Williams. Further, my logic behind it is that he had the best record in the NL! Sigh. Apparently, I love contradicting myself within the same article and within the same paragraph.

As previously mentioned, I have little inclination when it comes to baseball defence, so will have to forgo the whole Golden Glove category. But then again, Derek Jeter was awarded 4 of them and Kobe Bryant consistently gets voted on All-defence teams so it seems no one else knows anything about defence either. Instead, I just rolled with some Silver Slugger offense picks instead. Reading through Will’s picks, seems like he’s a closet Dodgers fan..Hanley Ramirez…come on?!

To cherry pick a few selections: Anthony Rendon was an absolute hero this year and genuinely could have been an MVP candidate, emerging as a top-2 2B and 3B. I listed him under 2B so I could squeeze in another emergent star, Todd Frazier, who “put it all together” in the words of some cliched sports announcer somewhere. Ian Desmond puts together another 20/20 season and while the average wasn’t quite there (.255), that’s the best you’re getting from the SS position. Just look at the counterpart in the AL, is there really no one better to pick than Jose Reyes?! I couldn’t name anyone. Would love to give this to Troy Tulowitzki one year but for 1) stay healthy and b) playing in Colorado is like having a cheat code.

Happy to see Altuve walk home with the batting title, incredible stuff. Be interesting to see whether Houston ships him out of town because they think they’re getting too good. Michael Brantley with a “Wow” season. I was high on Nelson Cruz coming into this year and he rewarded my faith by leading the league in homers. He hit 27 in 413 ABs in 2013, before he was suspended for PEDs but you had to imagine he was off them while undergoing the investigation for taking PEDs, so I wasn’t too concerned that he was relying on them for power. Plus the fact he was on a 1-year ‘show me’ deal means he had every incentive to play his ass off. Wait a minute…every incentive…big money contract…leading the majors in HRs….previously suspended in biogenesis scandal…lets just say I won’t be surprised if another scandal emerges shortly after he gets a contract extension. Cole Hamels was my choice for pitcher…I really had no idea here but felt sorry for Hamels putting together a sub-2.50 ERA season and ending up with a 9-9 win-loss record. Poor dude.

After dinner and beers were consumed, we turned our attention to the playoffs and World Series. Prediction:

Washington Nationals over Detroit Tigers.

Hard to look past both in terms of a balance between pitching rotation and quality bats.

Strasburg-Zimmerman-Fister (in revenge mode)-Gonzalez-Roark is the best rotation out there and it helps that I went to one of their games earlier this year so I’m not being entirely logical. Washington last won the World Series in 1924, and 90 years later, I expect them to win it again.

Thanks for coming, you’ve been wonderful!