SnoTap's First Half National 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. Check out the American League version that came out this morning.  

NL MVP
Troy Tulowitzki SS, Colorado Rockies - Obviously, I want to give the award to one of the Milwaukee Brewers whether it be Jonathan Lucroy or Carlos Gomez, but it has to be Tulowitzki. He is the league leader in home runs, WAR by a full win mind you, batting average, OPS over 1,000 (Only one in the National League), Slugging Percentage and On-Base Percentage which is stunning .435. It is not out of the realm of the possibilities for Tulo to get the first National League Triple Crown since Joe Medwick in 1937 when he did with St. Louis.

NL Cy Young:
Adam Wainwright P, St. Louis Cardinals - Hear me out, I believe at the end of the year, Clayton Kershaw will be the winner of the Cy Young, but if we are talking about first half, Wainwright deserves the award as his statistics are spread over 19 games versus 14 for Kershaw who battled injury for the first two months. Wainwright allowed only 28 runs during the first half of the season and a WAR of five, the highest for National League pitcher. Kershaw's numbers are damn silly, but for the first half, Wainwright deserves the Cy Young.


NL Rookie of the Year: 
Billy Hamilton CF, Cincinnati Reds - I could make a compelling case for Jacob deGrom of the Mets and I think Gregory Polanco and Kolton Wong (Somehow still a rookie) might be there at the end of it. But Hamilton deserves it thus far. He is the glue that makes Cincinnati go. Hamilton already has 38 stolen bases hitting .285 and leads all rookies in both doubles and triples. It also seems like he only gets better as he scuffled a bit to start the season, but Hamilton has been red hot as of late hitting .407 in the last seven days.

NL Surprise Team:
Milwaukee Brewers - There is the hometown team making an appearance. It had to be the Brewers honestly. Many of the teams that are vying for playoff spots have been there before in the past couple of years. Milwaukee is back to prominence after two years of struggling especially early on in the season. Brewers are hurting right now losing eleven of their last 13 games, but still, no one expected them to lead the National League Central.

NL Disappointing Team: 
Arizona Diamondbacks - The expectations were not there for Arizona like they had been in years past, but truthfully, no one expected them to be this bad. They are 16 games under .500 with a startling run differential of -71. They also have been very immature with their actions against Ryan Braun earlier this year which should surprise no one. Arizona finally needs to start focusing on prospects and start selling pieces of the team not named Paul Goldschmidt.

NL Breakout Player: 
Henderson Alvarez P, Miami Marlins - Miami looks to have a solid front-line pitching staff for the future with Jose Fernandez and Alvarez. He is the ripe age of 24 and came over to Miami in the Toronto Blue Jays mega deal. He had a decent campaign in 2013 with a no-hitter at the end of the year, but he is excelling in his first full season as a Miami starter. He allowed only 35 runs thus far this season yielding to a WAR of 2.7. Marlins are set up real nicely.

NL Regressing Player: 
Ryan Howard 1B, Philadelphia Phillies - I know what you are saying, Ryan Howard has been regressing for years. But this is his first full season in the last two years therefore some people might think Howard would have a rebirth. Nope, that didn't happen at all. Howard is hitting a measly .220 with an OPS of .381 and a negative WAR. It is fair to say Howard is done for his career. Maybe he comes back in five years and has one more big year, but it's not happening for awhile.

Most Overplayed Storyline:
Yadier Molina-Jonathan Lucroy riff - I am sick and tired of this garbage. The attack ad was funny then St. Louis blew out of proportion making it a national story. After that, Molina gets hurt and the Cardinals fanbase shines again when Wainwright struggled in the All-Star Game giving up three runs with Lucroy behind the dish. I am done and over with it, let's move on.

Bold Prediction
The bottom will fall out on San Francisco - There are eight teams vying for five spots meaning one or two of them are going to fade off into an abyss. I have a feeling San Francisco is going to be one of them. They had a horrible second part of the first half. On June 8th, San Francisco had a 42-21 record, since then, they have only won 10 games. Five weeks and only 10 games won.

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.