Hello Fans,
The season is officially over and we have difficult decisions to make. That is, deciding who we want on our VFTD team as it’s time to announce the 2nd Annual Caked On Clay Awards, better known as the COCAs. We have to sort through the Silver Sluggers, Gold Glovers, Cy Youngers, and MVPers to do so. Just to review, we only pick one player at each position so he has to do everything i.e. hit, field, run and anything, i.e. get dirty, hustle, and play every day (with approximately 500 plate appearances for regulars). The only other requirements are being healthy and no suspensions during the season. In addition, no DH is specifically awarded, but they are eligible at their natural position. See what you think of this year’s squad.
PITCHER: Last year, we went with Stephen Strasburg, who lit up the strikeout count. This year, we have to choose from Max Scherzer with his MLB leading 21 wins and 240 K’s, Adam Wainwright with his 19 wins, 1.07 WHIP, and 241+ innings pitched, and Clayton Kershaw with his 232 K’s, ZERO point ninety-two WHIP, and 1.83 ERA. And don’t forget dominating Atlanta closer Craig Kimbrel, who racked up 50 saves while posting a 1.21 ERA and 0.88 WHIP while striking out 98 in 67 innings. Well, it comes down to the two 25 year-old ‘K-Club’ members, no pun intended, I think, in Kershaw and Kimbrel. It’s a tough choice, but with what our lineup figures to do, we don’t need a closer so Kershaw gets the COCA. His record of 16-9 is perhaps one of the most deceiving we’ve seen in quite a while. The 16 wins are disappointing as a result of poor hitting by his club, but the 9 is ridiculous with those stats. His numbers are worthy of 22+ wins. With our mashers though, we figure he’ll go undefeated.
CATCHER: This year we’re going to cut right to the chase behind the dish. The COCA goes to the Cardinals’ Yadier Molina, who led the majors’ masked men in average (.319), hits (161), 2Bs (44), slugging (.477), OPS (.836), and WAR (5.7). That’s a great combination of traditional hitting and power numbers along with the SABER-esque stats too. Plus, he only struck out 55 times in 550 at-bats. That’s tough to do while getting beat up out there. He also has one of the best throwing arms in the game and the fastest of the fast have a hard time trying to run on that gun. Joe Mauer, with his batting line of .324/.404/.880 from what looks to be his last catching season, had a typical productive year despite just 75 games calling pitches. However, we’ll throw out honorable mention to Jonathon Lucroy of the Brew Crew as he led the catchers in RBI with 82 while batting .280, hitting 18 HRs, striking out just 69 times, walking 46, and stealing nine bags vs. getting caught just once. A do-all if you will.
FIRST BASE: Where does one begin at this spot? Plenty-o-options here folks. With names like Joey Votto, Prince Fielder, and Freddie Freeman hitting and slugging out there day in and day out, the competition is fierce. Those guys are all great players. Paul Goldschmidt of Arizona is a real talent and looks to be around for a long time after putting up 36 HRs, 125 RBI, a revved up ‘Boss’-like.302 average, 99 BBs vs. 145 K’s, .952 OPS and 15 swipes to boot. GREAT season! MVP candidate-worthy for sure. However, if you lead the Bigs with 53 HR and 138 RBI, post a 1.004 OPS and also pound out the most extra base hits at 96 (21 more than 2nd placers Goldschmidt and Mike Trout), you’re on the team. This guy put some of the innocent fun, that perhaps had been stripped away in recent years, of a home run chase being back in the spotlight for at least four months of the season. Should be no surprise here, Chris Davis, come on down and grab your 2013 COCA!
SECOND BASE: Dan Uggla hit 22 homers this year. He also batted .179. No kidding. The Braves told him to stay home for the playoffs. He’s out here too. Matt Carpenter led the entire N.L. with 199 hits. Great year. Not our guy. Dustin Pedroia led his team to the playoffs and World Series title while playing with a banged up thumb for five months. That’s tough. Great year with 84 RBI from the two-hole, but also not our guy. Our guy looks to cash in some of the finest chips ever in the next six weeks or so as a free agent after falling just four percentage points short in batting average (.314 to Carpenter’s .318) of the Second Sacker’s Triple Crown (27 HRs and 107 RBI). He also led the way with 41 2Bs, a .516 slugging, and .899 OPS. He’s real smooth with the mitt and has a great arm too. It’s Robinson Cano turning the 6-4-3 DP on our squad.
THIRD BASE: I’m all for using a combination of traditional and sabermetrics stats to help run a club. Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown last year. He made a serious run at it this year too. He led the Bigs in average at .348 while leading with a Ruthian .636 slugging percentage and also a mammoth 1.078 OPS. There’s the combo of old and new. So how the HECK can he NOT lead in WAR??? His WAR was 7.2, which is up there by any standard. No offense to Josh Donaldson of Oakland, who somehow had an 8.0 WAR with a .301/.499/.883 in comparison to Cabrera. Those numbers are even close folks. He also had 20 fewer HRs, 44 less RBI, 14 less BBs and 16 more K’s. He had a great season for sure and plays much better D, but Cabrera put up one of the finest and dominant all-around seasons in the last 25 years at least. Miggy, you’re in, but you knew that already!
SHORTSTOP: This position seems to be in a period of transition. In the mid-90s, for the first time, it became a position for big all-around athletes as Cal Ripken was hitting some of his 400+ homers. Enter Jeter, Rodriguez, and Garciaparra followed by Tejada, Renteria, and Hanley Ramirez. Now, it depends on what a particular club wants or needs to match the rest its lineup. There’s options. Do you want a ‘big’ who can hit third and drive in runs or do you need a great mitt, not as much power, on-base, and grab bags kind of guy? Well, when we’re out on the road, we like the combo meal as mentioned above. Who does that leave? Alexei Ramirez of the ChiSox can get hits (181), 2Bs (39), and stole 30 bags. Not a great slugger though and a below .700 OPS guy at .693. Real nice mitt too, but we’ll pass. The guy we’re talking about has been in the middle of some early off-season trade rumors, which is hard to believe considering the $118 million left on his contract. That’s what talent does though. He did win the ’13 SS Triple Crown with .312 ave, 25 HR, and 82 RBI. He also led in OBP, SLG, and of course OPS at a powerful .931. Plus, in his last 308 games, he’s only made 22 errors. WOW!! Rockie Troy Tulowitzki gets the nod. The only guy who’ll be rocky is the opposing pitcher!
OUTFIELD: Here, we have to take the best of the best regardless of where a guy may have lined up the most on defense. We got guys who can flat out go get it on the dive to take away those cheap duck snort broken-bat hits and they can scale a wall too. We’ll get to the stats in a second, here’s our outfield. Repeat COCA winners Mike Trout and Andrew McCutchen are joined by Baltimore’s Adam Jones. You shouldn’t even need numbers. But that’s what we do here. We all know about Trout. No doubt. He’s hard to get out. He was fourth overall in the Bigs at a .323 average and led the entire majors with a sabermetric most 145.1 Runs Created. He threw in 27 HRs, nine 3Bs, 97 RBI, 33 SB, 110 BBs to just 136 K’s with a .988 OPS, and 9.2 WAR. Need we say more? Dang! McCuthen is a ballplayer’s ballplayer. In nearly 600 at-bats, he hit .317, 21 HRs, 84 RBI, 27 SB, and .911 OPS, good for an 8.2 WAR. He’s the leader in his clubhouse and we have even put an ‘Mc’ in front of his ‘C’ on his jersey. The one on the front that is. Yep, he’s our McCaptain. Ahh, yes now for Jonesy. His 108 RBI out of CF will lead the way. He hammered 33 bombs and 35 2Bs too. Gotta love his 11 OF assists and 352 putouts too. Talk about an anchor up the middle!
That’s our team. We’ll probably bat around the line up in the first in this order: Pure athleticism with Trout and McCutchen setting the table, a feasting Cabrera at three, a hungry Davis at clean-up, a fine cuisine only Cano at five, a six pack will do Jones, Tulo for a seven course meal, meat and potatoes please Molina at eight and finally a cake-eating Kershaw. We took five ALers this year compared to four in 2012. Tie game in that regard. That was purely random, but perhaps ironic as the BoSox grabbed the Series title away from the NL’s Giants of last year too. Anyway, Cabrera is the only other repeat winner alongside Trout and McCutchen. It’s a tough squad to be eligible for, let alone make. Just like we said last year; hey, there’s always next year.
Later Fans.