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.

Machado's Intentional Bat Flip Frustration

Baltimore Orioles third baseman Manny Machado is one of the best young players in the game. At age 21, he does things not many players are able to do on both the offense and defense.  He had quite the weekend on the baseball diamond against the Oakland A's involving two different situations where Machado let his emotions get the best of him. Machado needs to learn how to reel in his emotional issues as he will be seen as a player opposing teams know they can get under his skin easy.

Friday's incident is not as severe as Sunday, but it still sparked everything for the weekend.In the third inning, Machado gets caught in a rundown and Oakland A's third baseman Josh Donaldson applied a sort of hard tag on him.  Machado didn't appreciate it and overreacted like I do when some girl doesn't talk to me on Tinder. He threw his helmet towards the direction of Donaldson sparking a fracas leading to the benches clearing out momentarily. Orioles pitchers seemed to defend Machado as Wei-Yin Chen threw at Donaldson later on in the game. It seemed like one of those moments that happen occasionally in baseball, but nothing more was thought of it.

Sunday is where things escalated to a full on feud and potential reputation-changing moment for Machado. Fernando Abad threw inside on Machado two consecutive times hoping he could break him, and that's exactly what happened as the young Orioles third baseman flung his bat towards Donaldson. Machado didn't use his words or his hands rather he threw a bat whom could have got several people hurt. It was a terrible decision by him, and there is no place for it in baseball. Odds are MLB will suspend him for five or more games to send a message to Machado is pretty high. He looked like a complete punk, but there are moments where we all have acted like punks at 21.

Where does this sudden anger stem from?  Possibly, the fact Machado is not having a good start in his second full season. We hear all the time about sophomore slumps, and it could ring true for the young Orioles player. In 34 games this season, he is hitting .235 on the season with only seven total extra bases with four home runs along with 19 hits and struck out 26 times already this season. Machado had a great 2013 campaign, and it appears the book has been figured out on him at least for the time being. He will likely be fine as many young players go through struggles like this one, but it is clear Machado's frustration at the plate carried over to what happened on the baseball diamond.

The bummer part of this is many people will now classify Machado for this incident. Obviously, he shouldn't have done it, but this doesn't make him a bad person. He did something stupid at a young age. I drank 15 shots of rum in 60 to 90 minutes at age 20. I should have probably been in the hospital that night, but I never did it again. Odds are Machado will never do something this again. Maybe that's a bad comparison, but at the same time, we do dumb things when we are young no matter if we are college kids or professional athletes. Machado will hopefully find a way to be a better player on the field and control his temper as much as possible.

Baltimore is in second-place in the American League East being 5.5 back from Toronto. If they want to make a serious run at returning to the playoffs for the first time since 2012, they will need Machado to be at his highest level.

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.