Viera Superlatives

Technically, when you read this post, the 2012 MLB Regular Season will have begun as the A's and Mariners are opening the year at 6am ET in Tokyo. Naturally, ESPN is showing their 3rd or 4th SportsCenter in a row and MLBN decided to show the game on Tape Delay. Don't they know that we are all ready for game action, and that we will get up early to watch the game or listen to it on the radio while at work???

Anyway, in my mind, Spring Training is over. The Nationals battles are all but decided with only a handful of players still in limbo (Michaels/Carroll, Stammen/Gorzelanny). I feel that it is time to give out some Awards on a varitey of baseball topics - some random and some legit. Enjoy.

MVP (Position Player) - Ryan Zimmerman. He has hit .424, gotten on base at a .500 clip, and he is slugging .788. That's just not ok. Those are MLB '12 The Show numbers right there.

MVP (Pitcher) - Henry Rodriguez. His control issues have shown to be a thing of the past as he has only walked 2 in 8 innings of work. Opponents are hitting a paltry .125 against him.

Truck Dealership Award - Jayson Werth. The dude hit his truck with a homer and "left a crater". How awesome is that.

Coolest Name Award - Austin Bibens-Dirkx. He has an "X" in his last name instead of an "S".

Best Newcomer Award - Eury Perez. He has never played above High-A yet he was still able to hit .333 in limited action while providing stellar CF defense.

"Staph" Award - Corey Brown. Brown had a 2011 September call-up to forget, getting a Staph Infection after just 3 ABs. He came into Spring showing the Nats Brass that he meant business, going 7 for 22 before being demoted (way too early) to AAA Syracuse.

Free Pass (Hitter) - Mark DeRosa. Talk about patience, DeRosa has 10 walks to just 1 strikeout so far - those 10 walks are 4 more than anyone else on the roster.

Free Pass (Pitcher) - Gio Gonzalez. He leads the Nationals pitching staff with 9 walks in just 15 innings of work. McCatty needs to settle him down just a bit more.

Worst Lineup - March 10 vs. The Tigers. The lineup for this road game went as such: Bernadina - 7. Lombardozzi - 4. Espinosa - 6. Tracy - 3. Flores - DH. Teahen - 5. Brown - 9. Solano - 2. Perez - 8.

Best Box Line (Hitter) - Roger Bernadina. Just three days ago (3/25)Roger Bernadina registered this gem of a line: 3 for 3. 1 HR. 1 R. 4 RBI. BB. Stellar.

Best Box Line (Pitcher) - Stephen Strasburg. On the same day that Bernadina was putting up the Best Box Line, Strasburg matched with his own top flight performance with this line: 5 IP. 5 H. 0 R. 1 BB. 5 K.

Worst Box Line (Pitcher) - Tom Gorzelanny. On Sunday March 4th, Tom Gorzelanny gave up 7 runs in just 1 inning of work. He gave up just 3 hits, so most of the damage came from his 4 walks. Ouch.

Worst Box Line (Hitter) - Bryce Harper. The day he got demoted (3/18) Bryce Harper put up the worst box line of the Spring - saved only by a late double. He went 1 for 5 with that double while registering a Golden Sombrero (4 strikeouts) in ugly fashion.

Ian "E6" Desmond Award - Ian Desmond. Shockingly, Desi leads the team with 4 errors so far in Grapefruit league action, garnering this prestigious award.

LVP (Hitter) - Andres Blanco. Simply put, when you have as many hits in 32 At-Bats (2) as Stephen Strasburg (a pitcher, mind you) does in 4 At-Bats (2) you get this award.

LVP (Pitcher) - Tom Gorzelanny. If you listened to the latest edition of Nats Talk On The Go, you heard a few Gorze stats. I shall repeat them. Everyone on the team has a better WHIP and ERA than Gorzelanny. EVERYONE. That includes Yunesky Maya. Yet, he will go north with the big club. *Shakes head*

LVP (General) - Training Staff. Another piss-poor appearance by the Nationals training staff. So far there have been way too many injuries that have been misdiagnosed as minor; LaRoche, Morse, and Solis. Several more nagging injuries that should have been prevented; Ankiel, Harper, Storen, Burnett.

Viera Panera Award (Best Sportswriting) - Tom Boswell. If you know me, I am not a huge Boswell fan, but his "investigation" on Jayson Werth's truck smashing bomb was just pure fun. I loved it.

Those are just a few of my awards, what are yours???

IBWA - 2011 Awards

Today the DC Chapter of the Internet Baseball Writers Association (of which we are a member) posted their end of the year awards - a cumulative effort from all of the voting members of the Association. If you want to see the results click HERE.

Below I have included my votes for all of the awards, with my own special brand of reasoning. Winners are in parenthesis, my votes are after that, in italics.

Goose Goslin MVP Award (Winner - Morse): 1st - Morse. 2nd - Clippard. 3rd - Espinosa

Morse was the pretty obvious selection for just about everyone. He was able to play decent defense after LaRoche's injury as well as blossoming into an all-star caliber offensive star. He won't get any, but he deserves a few real MVP votes this year.

Walter Johnson Starting Pitcher o' The Year (Winner - Zimmermann): 1st - Zimmermann. 2nd - Lannan. 3rd - Livan.

Jordan Zimmermann was absolutely fantastic in his first full year back after Tommy John surgery. He showed that he could easily slide into the "Ace" label if the club needs it, as he registered the highest Nats WAR for a pitcher since 2005.

Firpo Mayberry Relief Pitcher o' The Year (Winner- Clippard): 1st - Clippard. 2nd - Storen. 3rd - HRod.

No need to explain. The stats speak for themselves.

Sam Rice Hitter o' The Year (Winner - Morse): 1st - Morse. 2nd - Espinosa. 3rd - Zimmerman.

Ignoring Morse (you saw what he could do, explained above), Danny Espinosa has a huge ceiling as a switch hitter. His left-hand side needs a bit of work, but that's where the power is - if he can cut down on the strikeouts you will see him winning this award next year.

Frank Howard Slugger o' The Year (Winner - Morse): 1st - Morse. 2nd- Espinosa. 3rd - Werth.

I have Werth here at 3rd because he had a very sneaky good second half, posting comparable, if not better, numbers to his career averages. Breaking the 20 HR mark is what inspired me to put him on this list.

Joe Judge Defensive Player o' The Year (Winner - Espinosa): 1st - Espinosa. 2nd - Ankiel. 3rd - Ramos.

Espinosa's defense was outstanding this year. He makes plays that only a handful of 2nd baseman in baseball can even think about, making him a perennial Gold Glove candidate. It is worth nothing that Ankiel played outstanding center field this year and that Ramos did a yeoman's job managing a pitching staff at such a young age.

Mickey Vernon Comeback Player o' The Year (Winner - Zimmermann): 1st - Wang. 2nd - Lannan. 3rd - Strasburg.

The fact that Chien Ming Wang can even throw a baseball anymore is outstanding and noteworthy, but that he has been able to come back and pitch at such a high level is incredible. For John Lannan to have such a solid year after being sent to the minors is also worth mention, as is Jesus Flores' return to the majors.

Josh Gibson Humanitarian o' The Year (Winner - Desmond): 1st - Desmond. 2nd - Zimmerman. 3rd - Pudge.

Ian Desmond has been everywhere around DC this year, whether it's breaking ground on a field or just helping out at food shelter. He is the Nats representative for the Roberto Clemente award, for which there is no higher praise in baseball.

Minor League Player o' The Year (Winner - Harper): 1st - Harper. 2nd - Lombardozzi. 3rd - Peacock.

The Phenom should've been an obvious choice here. Yes, the other two (and others) had fantastic seasons, but let's face it - Bryce Harper was able to dominate AA where the only other teenager on the field was the bat boy.

Agree? Disagree? Who are your winners? Leave 'em in the comments!

Saturday Predictions: NL Edition

Happy Saturday everyone.  As the Nats' Yunesky Maya takes on the Braves' Derek Lowe, I thought today would be as good a time as any to make some end of season predictions.  As the Braves fight to stay alive in the playoff race, Capitol Baseball is going to tackle division winners, the wild card winner, and individual winners for the 2010 season in the National League.  We'll start with division predictions.

NL East: Philadelphia Phillies.  As much as it pains me to admit, the Phillies are just way, way too good.  They have Halladay, Oswalt, and Hamels: among the best 1, 2, 3 pitchers in all of baseball.  Their position players are approaching healthy, and Brad Lidge looks like the Brad Lidge of old.  I don't see any way that the Phils don't claim the division in the next day or two.

NL Central: Cincinatti Reds.  This one is easy.  The Reds are in 1st by 6.5 games in the Central with just over a week left in the season.  They'll clinch very soon.

NL West: San Francisco Giants.  I had to weigh this one over and over and over again.  The Padres at one point this year were the best team in the National League.  Then they experienced a 10 game losing streak that destroyed their lead in the west.  And the Giants have looked nearly unbeatable over the last few weeks.  They are currently ahead of the Padres by 1/2 game, and I'm not saying the lead won't go back and forth a few times.  But that Giants rotation with the resurence of guys like Huff and Burrell, plus the addition of Buster Posey (more on him later), the Giants will winn the NL West this season.

NL Wild Card: San Diego Padres.  As an NL East guy (obviously), I would have liked to see Bobby Cox get the playoffs in his final season.  And the Braves looked like they were going to do just that.  They led the Phillies by 6.5 games at one point, but have completely disintegrated since then.  They got trounced by the Nationals on Friday night, and just one more loss with a Phillies win will eliminate them from the pennant contention.  I think the Padres still have enough confidence to pull out the Wild Card spot.

Here are my individual predictions:

NL MVP: Carlos Gonzalez.  I almost picked Pujols here, but if you look at CarGo, it's hard to not love his story and surge this year.  Yes, he plays in Coors Field, but numbers don't lie.  As of today, he's hitting .340, with .606 slugging %.  He leads the NL with 113 RBIk.  The only stat that he hasn't dominated is home runs, the stat that is helped most by playing at Coors.  He still has 33, landing him firmly in the top 5 in the NL in homers.  While it can certainly still be Pujols, because he is the best offensive player in baseball, I think the honors will go to Gonzalez this year.

NL Cy Young: Roy Halladay.  I don't think there's any question about this.  The Philies are going to win the NL East, he has 20 wins, his ERA is 3rd best in the NL.  Josh Johnson and Adam Wainwright have lower ERAs, and Wainwright is 20-11.  But Halladay is a primary reason that the Phillies are going to the playoffs, and the Cardinals aren't going to the playoffs.  So like it or not, fair or not, I think that eliminates Wainwright from the conversation.

NL Rookie of the Year: Buster Posey.  To me, there's no question about this.  I know that it's possible that Jaime Garcia or Jason Heyward have a better chance.  Garcia's 2.70 ERA and 13 wins his rookie year is remarkable.  Heyward's solid play in the outfield and pretty good .282 average and very good .398 on-base % place him high on the list.  But Buster Posey as the starting catcher for the San Francisco Giants.  Posey is hitting .320 and 16 home runs.  He spent a large part of the season waiting for Bengie Molina to move out of the way.  Once he did, he became the spark behind the Giants surge into 1st place in the NL West.  Without Posey behind the plate, I don't think there is any chance the Giants would be in the position that they are.  He deserves the award.

So there are my predictions.  I'm going to try to make some AL predictions within the next 48 hours, too.  I know I'll get one right, as the Twins have already clinched, but be sure to leave your comments, thoughts, and disagreements in the comments section.