Baseball returns after the all-star break tomorrow and that only means one thing: it’s time for my first half awards.
MVP: This should be the most obvious award of them all as I too am naming Josh Hamilton as my first half MVP. In what is shaping up to be the story of the year in Major League Baseball the center fielder leads the majors with 95 RBI, has jacked 21 homers, and is hitting .310 at the plate. However he’s going to have to turn it up even more as the third place Rangers are 7.5 games behind the AL West leading Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Cy Young: This was a tough one for me as there are many deserving pitchers at this point in the season. Cliff Lee, Edinson Volquez, and Ben Sheets are all great candidates but they all get the stiff to my Cy Young winner: Tim Lincecum. With an 11-2 record and an ERA of 2.57 Lincecum has been on of the few bright spots on a San Francisco Giants team that is currently 15 games below .500. Lee, Volquez and Sheets all have numbers to match Lincecum but they currently have massively better supporting casts around them which is why Lincecum gets the nod as the Major League’s best pitcher.
Rookie of the Year: This one is up for debate because it’s hard to determine who’s a rookie and who’s not. Jacoby Ellsbury has received credit for rookie of the year, but I just can’t say that someone who almost won World Series MVP a year ago is a rookie so he’s out of contention. After Ellsbury there are tons of young players who have played great roles this year but the one that stands above the rest is Evan Longoria of the Tampa Bay Rays. The rookie third basemen has been the biggest surprise of the surging Tampa Bay Rays with a batting average of .275, 16 homeruns and 53 RBI. You could also make a case for Longoria as the team MVP of the Rays who have broken out of the AL East cellar for the first time in franchise history, no one on the team has played a bigger role than Longoria. Keep in mind that Longoria wasn’t even on the active roster till mid April and his numbers are still extremely impressive despite his late start.
Manager of the Year: Lou Piniella deserves a lot of credit for the first half of the year as he has the Cubs chasing their first championship in exactly 100 years. Since Charlie Manuel took over for the fired Willie Randolph he has the Mets as hot as any other team in baseball. Ron Gardenhire has the Minnesota Twins right in the thick of things after losing Torii Hunter and Johan Santana in the off-season, and has done it despite an extremely young roster. However my manager of the first half without question is Joe Maddon of the Tampa Bay Rays. Maddon is the manager of what has been one of the worst organizations in baseball for the last few years and it’s looking like they’ll be one of the best for the next few years. The Rays have looked for real for the first 90 plus games this year, they have destroyed both the Red Sox and Yankees at times this season and will be right in the thick of things for the rest of the year in the AL East which has been a two team division for as long as most of the young Rays’ players have been alive.
The Rat Rant Award: This is the award that goes to the player I’ve had the most fun watching this whole season. Since this would be extremely biased since I watch more Twins baseball than anything else I’m only going to consider my Twins for this award. Now most people are going to say Carlos Gomez has been the most exciting Twin but due to his inconsistency I can’t say he’s been the most fun for me to watch. Mauer and Morneau are perennial superstars in every sense of the word but lack the flash and dare I say pizzazz that keeps you on the edge of your seat every time they step to the plate. So having taken everything into account I can possibly think of I present the first half Rat Rant award to second basemen Alexi Casilla. The Twins were off to a rough start at the beginning of the year, but after calling up Casilla they headed into the all-star break just a game and a half back of the division leading White Sox. Casilla has been a very reliable hitter out of the two spot in the batting order, has been a nightmare on the base paths for opposing teams and was on a 15-game hitting streak earlier in the season. He’s also been one of the most exciting fielders to watch in baseball, he has as much lateral quickness as anyone at his position and seemingly takes care of any ball hit in his vicinity. But most of all Casilla has been the spark this team was craving when they finally called him up well into the season. If Casilla stays as exciting as he’s been his spark should ignite the Twins all the way to the playoffs and a division title.
So there you have it, my awards for the first half of the season. There’s still plenty of time for things to change throughout the rest of the year so stay tuned, it should continue to be a pretty exciting summer.
Terry Horstman
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