The Baseball Writers of America have announced the finalists for their awards for the just completed shortened baseball season, which will be announced next week. It is a good bet that few of my original predictions for the winners will be accurate. Hopefully, these new predictions will be slightly better, especially since I’ll have a 33% chance of being right.
American League
Most Valuable Player: Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Shohei Ohtani, Marcus Semien
Well, one difference between my pre-season selection, Aaron Judge, and the three finalists is that Judge played in a post-season game. I would assume Shohei Ohtani will walk away with this award.
Cy Young Award: Gerrit Cole, Lance Lynn, Robbie Ray
My initial guess was that Lucas Giolito would take home the prize, but my guess is Robbie Ray, who won the ERA title and led the major leagues in strikeouts, will take home the award.
Manager of the Year: Dusty Baker, Kevin Cash, Scott Servais
As usual, I didn’t make any predictions for this award prior to the season. I assume Mariners manager Scott Servais will win for keeping his team in contention until the final day of the season, despite his GM selling off his closer at the trade deadline.
Rookie of the Year: Randy Arozarena, Wander Franco, Luis Garcia
Another award I didn’t predict prior to the season. Assuming Arozarena and Franco don’t split the Tampa vote, I’m going to go with Franco.
National League
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With the All-Star Game in the books and a few days of rest before the unofficial second half kicks off, let’s take a look at the first half offensive leaders for the 24 games I’ve attended so far this season, starting with: