Notes, quotes and comment

Gonna interrupt the stream of "Handbook" posts for a few days and catch up on the news.

Awards season

Nothing on the National League side to comment on: Everything is as it should be. Kris Bryant won the MVP as expected; Max Scherzer was certainly deserving of the Cy Young;  Corey Seager merited designation as the Rookie of the Year; and Dave Roberts works as Manager of the Year.

On the AL side, the voters acknowledged the obvious in ROY (Michael Fulmer) and Manager (Terry Francona). But the other two awards deserve some comment, in one case because of old-school voting and in the other for new-school voting.

Mike Trout -- clearly the best player in baseball the past five years --  won his second MVP. I expected it to go to Mookie Betts, who obviously had a superb season and played on a team that won. The writers, this time, gave it to the best player even though it wasn't anything resembling a career year for him and even though his team was far from contention. And even though a wide range of September game broadcasts, when discussing the MVP possibilities, excluded Trout from the possibilities.

Trout in the past five seasons has finished second, second, first, second and first in MVP voting. He could easily have won all five seasons; the competing metrics that attempt to merge fielding and hitting into one figure often disagree, but they all agree each year that Trout is the best player in the American League.

The Cy Young voting was interesting, not least because of the Tweet storm it provoked from model Kate Upton, who is romantically involved with runner-up Justin Verlander. Rick Porcello won, even though Verlander had more first-place votes (14 to 8).

Had I a vote, I probably would have put Verlander at the top, but I also would have researched the question more thoroughly. A quick glance at Porcello's numbers suggest a stronger statistical case than I realized when the award was announced Wednesday. He's not an embarrassment as the winner.

But the biggest piece for Porcello was probably the gaudy won-lost record (22-4). Verlander was "only" 16-9. Perhaps most telling were the voters who ranked J.A. Happ (20-4) ahead of Verlander -- or, in the case of the two Tampa Bay-chapter voters who provoked Upton's ire, left Verlander off their ballots completely but found room for Happ. The only thing Happ had going for him was the won-lost record.

Old-school voting prevailed in the Cy Young contest, new age in the MVP.

Gardy in a dugout

Arizona hired Ron Gardenhire, not as manager but as bench coach. So he will presumably be advising new skipper Torey Lovello -- supposedly the runner-up to Paul Molitor when the Twins were replacing Gardy -- on when to bunt or change pitchers.

I've been skeptical that Gardenhire would get another managerial post. Taking a bench job at least puts him back in the game.

Korn Ferry fired

The search firm the Twins used to find Derek Falvey as director of baseball ops got axed by MLB this week because it was basically going to the same well (the Cleveland organization) over and over again to find candidates.

There does seem to have been a lack of diversity, not only racially but in background, of the people Korn Ferry promoted to teams for important front office positions. But I also suspect that owners wanted the kind of people Korn Ferry provided -- young, analytic, educated. That's certainly what I expected the Twins to demand, because it's what was lacking in the previous leadership model.

The search that produced Falvey was one of the last Korn Ferry did, and it may be that it was the last straw. But Falvey seems to be what the Twins bosses wanted.

Pic of the Week

Mike Trout, Superman

If you were up late enough last night watching the MLB Network -- or perhaps a highlight show -- you saw this play. Mike Trout of the Angels going far over the centerfield fence in Anaheim to take a three-run homer away from Jesus Montero of the Seattle Mariners.

It might be the best defensive play of the season, By anybody.

The catch certainly mattered to the Angels, who won 3-2 in 10 innings (walk-off homer by David Freese). And it mattered to the Twins, who also won Friday night but made no progress in their quest for a wild-card berth. They're still behind the Angels and the Houston Astros (who also won on Friday).

Mike Trout, Alex Gordon and the MVP race

Alex Gordon (4) is pretty clearly the best player on the
first-place Kansas City Royals. Does that make him
the MVP?

Alex Gordon had himself an impressive series this week against the Twins: A game-winning walk-off homer on Tuesday, a run-into-the-fence catch on Wednesday, a game-tying seventh-inning homer on Thursday.

Production and drama make a potent combination. Narrative, for better or worse, tends to drive MVP voting, and the rise of the Royals provides a first-rate narrative.

This led the great Joe Posnanski to compose a pair of blog posts -- here and here -- on the topic of Gordon's MVP candidacy.

(Posnanski was at those games, and I was home with the TV and/or radio broadcasts, but I have to say: I didn't notice the "M-V-P" chants he cites. But I keep the TV turned down now that Bert Blyleven is back on the broadcasts, and the crowds weren't so large as to force me to take notice.)

Pos makes a variety of great points, among them mentioning in the first post how some in the sabermetric community see the WAR stat being used (in the great Vin Scully line) as a drunk uses a lamppost (for support rather than illumination).

Mike Trout's glovework is not as
highly rated these days as it once was.

But it's the theme of the second post -- that Mike Trout, the best player in baseball the past two years but not recognized by the BBWAA vote as the MVP, is morphing from an incredibly broad talent into something closer to a Miggy Cabrera skill set -- that had me nodding my head in agreement.

Trout is an incredible player -- but he doesn't run as well, or at least as often, as he did two years ago, and the defensive metrics aren't as kind to his fielding. This flies in the face of the nearly omnipresent MLB ad that boasts: Mike Trout can do anything. All you have to do is ask. The anything is fading.

Bill James wrote decades ago that players who do a lot of things well tend to be underappreciated, and those who do one thing very well tend to get more recognition than they should. Trout in 2012 and 2013 did everything very well. Miguel Cabrera did a few things even better, and got the awards.

Trout's skill set is narrowing, and now he might finally win the award. There's an irony in that.

Outrages I'm having trouble being overly outraged about

Jose Reyes is one-and-done in
Miami.

Outrage 1: The Miami Marlins turned themselves into fish sticks with a major salary-dump trade with Toronto (it's still not official, pending physicals and probably some salary review by the commissioner's office). Mark Buehrle, Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, John Buck ... they signed last winter for big coin with the the Fish, and now they're gone.

In a pure baseball sense, it's probably a good trade for Miami. It's not like they broke up a good team. The Marlins finished last with those high-priced guys. They can finish last without them.

The real reason this deal draws universal derision when the Red Sox got a pass for doing the same thing in midsummer is that Jeffrey Loria and his co-conspirators in the Miami organization have poisoned the well. They don't get the benefit of the doubt, because they burned that long ago.

I believe that Loria and Co. are slimeballs and represent the worst of big-time pro sports ownership. I also believe that they are systematically wrecking Miami as a baseball market, just as they did Montreal.

I can despise Loria and everything he stands for without trashing this trade.

Miguel Cabrera wasn't the worst defensive
third baseman in the league -- hello, Trevor
Plouffe -- but he was close.

Outrage 2: Miguel Cabrera won the American League MVP award Thursday in a one-sided vote over Mike Trout.

Miggy had a big year, but he wasn't better than Trout, Triple Crown or no. Trout wasn't far behind Cabrera as a hitter, and was far superior in the field and on the bases. Yes, Cabrera's team made the playoffs, but Trout's team (a) won more games (b) playing a far more difficult schedule.

But this isn't the biggest outrage of recent MVP voting. This isn't Juan Gonzalez winning an MVP for piling up RBIs in an extreme hitter's park.

Outrage 3: David Price on Wednesday won the AL Cy Young Award in a close vote over Justin Verlander.

Again, Price had a fine season. Verlander was better. This is very much akin to 2005, when Bartolo Colon won the award over Johan Santana, an award the writers apparently began to regret almost as soon as it was announced. Colon had a good year, but everybody knew Santana was the superior pitcher.

The same is true this year, perhaps not to the degree that it was in 2005, but still ... I doubt anybody in baseball would rather have Price than Verlander (ignoring the salary difference).