SnoTap's First Half American League Awards

I am pretty confident every blog across America has their own awards for the season, but I have to add SnoTap's to the mix. There are some standard awards with a couple different ones in there as well. Look for the National League version to come out later this afternoon. 

AL MVP
Mike Trout OF, Los Angeles Angels - It is finally time to embrace Trout as the MVP of the American League. We could argue all day that he deserved it in the last two years as well. The numbers right now for Trout are pretty solid with him leading the American League in WAR, OPS (Only player over 1,000) and second in runs scored, OBP and Slugging Percentage. Also it doesn't hurt that Los Angeles is one of the best teams this season unlike the last two years.

AL Cy Young:
Scott Kazmir, P, Oakland A's - Yup, King Felix doesn't bring his second Cy Young back to Seattle. There can be a case made for Kazmir whose having a better year than Hernandez in my opinion. He allowed less hits, runs, earned runs than Felix even though Kazmir gets trumped when it comes to WAR and strikeouts. Further, the reason some of his numbers are down is due to having one less start than Hernandez on the season. I think he is worth consideration at this point.  

AL Rookie of the Year: 
Jose Abreu 1B, Chicago White Sox - Just hand him the trophy today. There is no one whom will come close to the season the Cuban sensation is having for the White Sox. He leads the league in home runs with 29, and there is a chance he could hit 50 or more for the season. Additionally, he leads the American League in Slugging Percentage. It is not just home runs either as Abreu is hitting .292 on the season. Not out of the realm of possibilities for Abreu to be considered for the MVP when it's all said and done.  

AL Surprise Team:
Seattle Mariners - Even though it should have been expected Seattle would get better with their free agent acquisitions of Robinson Cano, Corey Hart and others, they still need to win games. We saw with Toronto last season where they brought in all sorts of talent and didn't win. Seattle is seven games over .500 and have 50 wins already. Sadly, they play in the toughest division in baseball. If Seattle would be one or two back if they were in any other AL division, they are the second team in the Wild Card.

AL Disappointing Team: 
Boston Red Sox - This is a no-brainer. The World Series champions have fallen off a cliff from last season. They are nine games under .500 with a run differential of negative 38. It doesn't seem like things will get better for this team. What's weird is they aren't completely out of it in the AL East. Currently, they are 9.5 games back from first place and if they go on some tear, Boston could be right back in the race.

AL Breakout Player: 
Michael Brantley OF, Cleveland Indians - It was between two Indians as to who would take this honor, but I went with Brantley given that he is still excelling while Lonnie Chisenhall has been sort of falling off in the last couple of months. Brantley already has his career-best in home runs with 15 and his average is up to .322, the highest of his career. Further, Brantley is four doubles away from matching his 2013 total.

AL Regressing Player: 
Brian McCann C, New York Yankees - I am not saying New York overpaid for McCann's services, but I am not saying they didn't. McCann is not having an enjoyable experience in the Bronx yet. He is only hitting .239 with 10 home runs on the season. McCann had a terrible June going .198 with only two hits going 17 of 86 for the month. McCann's July has been far different so maybe he will have a second half surge.

Most Overplayed Storyline:
Justin Verlander and Kate Upton - I am over this relationship. People love to talk about it whether it was them going on vacation or being at a basketball game. It is time to retire this being important in our day-to-day life. By the way, Verlander leads the league in earned runs and ERA so that's good.

Bold Prediction
One of the AL West Big Three will miss the playoffs - I don't know how bold of a prediction this but right now, the AL West is the class of the American League. Four teams are four or less games back from Seattle for the second position. Los Angeles seems like they will take the other Wild Card, but we have seen the Angels go into bad swings before too.

Charlie.

Changes to Interleague Rivalries Needed

For the last two years, Milwaukee and Minnesota have been playing a split four-game series during the week.  It is a part of the new Major League Baseball Interleague system as Houston Astros made the transition to American League giving both leagues 15 teams. This meant we would have an interleague series every series turn with two divisions playing each other along with the ‘rivalry’ matchups getting a four-game series during the week so each team would get two games at home.  This officially needs some fine tuning after two years because it is hurting baseball’s economy with ticket revenue.  How to fix it is pretty simple actually and it is beyond me why MLB hasn’t thought about it before.

The four-game weekday series works for only four interleague rivalries.  Those are Chicago Cubs vs. Chicago White Sox, Oakland A’s vs. San Francisco Giants,  New York Yankees vs. New York Mets  and Los Angeles Angels vs. Los Angeles Dodgers. The reason why it works for these four rivalries is the opposing fanbase can make it to the other team’s venue with ease drawing a bigger crowd.  When you have something like Minnesota-Milwaukee which is a six-hour trip, no one is making the trip to Milwaukee on Monday or Tuesday.  Cleveland and Cincinnati, Tampa Bay and Miami are other examples where it makes things difficult for the opposing fan to travel elsewhere.

This doesn’t stop at the box office either. Sure, most people coming into town will spend more money. They might buy a Hank t-shirt, stuff animal, etc, but they are also seeing the game at better seats.  Further, usually these opposing fans are probably staying at a hotel which is more revenue for the city along with spending money in the variety of bars and restaurants across the city. It might not be significant revenue unless the opposing team is really good and bringing in a great deal of fans, but it still is something missing in the last couple years.

Honestly, the series haven’t been as much without having Twins fans all over the city. As they have struggled, we haven’t seen as many around Milwaukee in the past couple years, but it is a good-hearted rivalry.  Additionally, it is really fun to be in an opposing ballpark giving the other fans shit in a scenario like this one.  You start singing Jason Kendall’s name like clocktower (JAAAAAAY-SON KEN-DALLLLLL, JAAAAAY-SON KEN-DALLLLLL) and talking about football in June because at times, Vikings fans have small-man’s syndrome (Love you guys).  MLB is taking away all of these things away from Brewers and Twins fans along with other rivalries around the league.  Hopefully, this is the last year with these split series during the week.

If they decided to these series on the weekend where MLB had four-game series split with Thursday/Friday being at the first place with Saturday/Sunday being at the second place. MLB can flip it every season allowing for both teams getting the weekend games.  This would still help drive people to the opposing ballpark. It is a lot easier to take off work at the end of the week telling the boss, ‘We are going to see Brewers-Twins in Milwaukee and spending the whole weekend down there.’  Taking two days off work and probably staying an extra day to party is not the worst thing in the world. Most people are not taking off Monday and Tuesday because one, there is not much nightlife happening and two, many people don't want to come back to their job on Wednesday.

The other thing baseball could think about is adding an extra series to interleague.   I doubt they want to do something like this because do you really want each team to get a weekend series with their interleague rival versus an extra division series?  Odds are probably not, but if they could figure out a way to make a schedule work, that would be the dream honestly. The one place where I could see them finding a way is trying to subtract an inter-division series.  But is it really beneficial to have them play another interleague series versus inter-division matchup like Arizona-Milwaukee?  For revenue standards, no question about it, but for potential playoff record against the National League, it could be troublesome.

This is one of the minor things the new commissioner will have to address next season.  Four-game series aren’t affecting the players rather it is affecting the fans whom want to cheer their home team in a city not their own. 

Charlie. 

SnoTap's Baseball Thing: Pujols' 500th HR & Matt Harvey's Finger

Many people thought Albert Pujols was done as being one of the best players in the game. He only hit 17 home runs and struggled mightily all season. Pujols might have needed a year to figure out how to hit American League pitching or is finally healthy from all sorts of nagging injuries. Pujols belted two home runs and his second one was number 500.  He is the third youngest player to get to 500 home runs. He has eight on the season and would not be surprised if he ends up with 35+ this season.  

This became a big deal today. Matt Harvey originally tweeted this picture out this morning. Everyone had a good laugh at it, but since the New York Mets are complete tightwads, they got in a tizzy. Harvey said screw it and deleted the whole thing. It still exists on Instagram if you want to see it, I will embed it again, screenshot is only there in case he decides to quit Instagram too.