Fans Are the Best

Time for the JoeBlogs Weekly Awards — as a reminder, we hand out the JoeBlogs trophies every week to the players who are my current picks for MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, and more. Below each award, I’ll list last week’s winner. We’re a quarter of the way through the season now, so we should start seeing some stability in these awards …

American League MVP: Aaron Judge, Yankees
(Previously: Aaron Judge, 2 weeks in a row)

The man is STILL hitting .414.

We’ll talk more about this tomorrow, but I’ve been having an ongoing conversation with Tom Tango and Bill James about the players who achieved guaranteed Hall of Fame status the fastest. That is to say — well, let’s talk about Mike Trout for a moment. Five full seasons into his career (he played just 40 games in 2011), Trout had won two MVP awards, finished second the other three years, and posted 47.5 WAR. If his career had ended right then, I have absolutely no doubt he would have been a Hall of Famer.

Now, many of you already know that Hall of Fame eligibility rule 3(B) clearly states:

In other words, Trout — with only six full or partial seasons — would not have been eligible for the Hall. I firmly believe the rule would have been waived for him. But more to the point, I think the rule should be waived entirely. If someone comes into the Major Leagues next year and hits .800 with 150 home runs, he should go straight to the Hall of Fame, do not pass Gomes, do not collect two hundred Dollanders. The 10-year rule is outdated and arbitrary, plus I don’t think it has ever been tested. I don’t think there’s a single player who did not play 10 full seasons who has gained any real momentum in the Hall of Fame game.

Even Smoky Joe Wood, who is not in the Hall of Fame because his pitching career ended sadly at 25, ended up playing in 11 partial seasons.

The point is, if it DOES ever happen — if an all-time great like Jim Brown happens to come along in baseball and not play 10 seasons — it would be absurd to keep him out of the Hall of Fame.

But (as usual) I digress. The point is talking about players who become Hall of Famers after only a few years.

Aaron Judge is a guaranteed, no-doubt, first-ballot Hall of Famer if he retires tomorrow. I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago (this is what sparked the conversation with Tango and Bill in the first place), and a couple of Brilliant Readers did write in to say, “Wait a minute, he only has 56 WAR, which makes him a borderline Hall of Famer at best.”

I get the impulse, but this is exactly why I’ve soured on using career WAR as a Hall of Fame measuring tool. It’s a part of the story, sure, but Aaron Judge is one of the greatest hitters we have ever seen. When you take into account how the game has changed, he might be THE greatest hitter we’ve ever seen. I realize this is dangerously close to the gut-reaction “I know a Hall of Famer when I see one” vibe, but, actually, yeah, we all should know that when we watch Aaron Judge, we are watching a Hall of Famer.

National League MVP: Corbin Carroll, Diamondbacks
(Previously: Pete Crow-Armstrong, Cubs)

While Judge has run away with the JoeBlogs MVP Award in the Junior Circuit, there are like five or six guys who are basically tied in the National League. Right now, I’d list them like so:

1. Corbin Carroll, Arizona. Leads the league in triples and total bases and is just one homer behind the leaders. Also among the league leaders in outs above average (OAA) defensively.

2. Pete Alonso, Mets. Absolutely crushing. Polar Bear leads the league in doubles and RBI.

3. Fernando Tatis, San Diego. He just continues to do a bit of everything — at the plate, on the bases, and in the field.

4. Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles. Look who has entered the MVP fray with a massive hot streak — he’s batting .405 with five homers in his last nine games.

American League Cy Young: Tarik Skubal, Tigers
(Previously: Max Fried)

Houston’s Hunter Brown still leads the American League in both bWAR and fWAR — he’s having a truly wonderful season — but, yeah, I watched Skubal’s performance against the Rangers last Friday and, um, there ain’t nobody on Planet Earth as good as Tarik Skubal. I had this moment during the game when I actually thought — and I don’t remember ever thinking this while watching a pitcher before — “Oh, this is what it must have been like for people to watch Sandy Koufax.”

One quick shoutout to our pal Harold Reynolds. The first batter of the game for the Rangers was Sam Haggerty, and the first pitch Skubal threw was a ball. The next pitch was a 100-mph fastball that Haggerty swung at approximately six minutes late.

“Over!” Reynolds immediately shouted. “This at-bat is OVER!”

His point was that Haggerty, ahead in the count 1-0, knew that Skubal would throw a fastball. As such, he was sitting on the fastball, waiting for it the way Thor was waiting for Hulk to come around the corner in Avengers.* And he was still light years behind the fastball. Reynolds understood that after having that fastball blown by him, Haggerty had no chance in the at-bat, and indeed, he had no chance: He struck out swinging.

National League Cy Young: Logan Webb, Giants
(Previously: Yoshinobu Yamamoto)

Logan Webb is striking out people this year. That’s pretty wild. Webb has been an old-fashioned workhorse these last three or four years. He doesn’t throw hard, at least not by today’s standards, but he utterly pounds the zone with his five-pitch arsenal, and he gets a lot of quick outs, and he keeps the ball in the ballpark, particularly in San Francisco, where he knows the dimensions of Oracle Park better than anyone.

But this year, he’s getting some swing and miss, particularly on his change-up and sweeper, to go along with the many, many ground balls that his sinker so generously provides.

American League Rookie of the Year: Jacob Wilson, Athletics
(Previously: Kristian Campbell)

This award has been going back and forth between Wilson and Campbell all season, but we now have a clear leader. Campbell has gone into a nasty slump — he’s just three for his last 34 — while Wilson keeps rapping out Sacramento singles. Wilson is hitting .348 and leads the league with 42 bingles — did you call singles “bingles” back when you were young? I had not thought about that in years: We used to do that all the time (“Come on, we need a little bingle here!”). It’s so perfectly stupid to add a “B” to the perfectly fine word “single.” I love baseball.

National League Rookie of the Year: Agustín Ramírez, Marlins
(Previously: Luisangel Acuña, Mets)

Ugh. This NL Rookie of the Year race drives me bonkers every week … nobody stands out. Well, at least the battle between Agustín Ramírez and Luisangel Acuña is a good matchup of names. I hope people start calling Agustín Ramírez “Gloop.”

American League Manager of the Year: A.J. Hinch, Tigers
(Previously: A.J. Hinch)

The Tigers keep rolling, and I’m sticking with A.J. as my Skipper of the Year.

National League Manager of the Year: Carlos Mendoza, Mets
(Previously: Craig Counsell)

The Mets keep rolling, and it feels like Juan Soto is only just beginning to heat up. Mendoza seems to have found his favorite bullpen piece in Huascar Brazobán — a 35-year-old Dominican righty who has bounced all around North and Latin America and now seems to have found a home with his upper-90s sinker and Bugs Bunny change-up.

Best American League Team: Detroit Tigers
(Previously: Detroit Tigers)

I keep waiting for another team to take this away from the Tigers — the Mariners had a chance until a rough weekend in Toronto. The Yankees are definitely starting to assert themselves, too. But for now, it’s still Eminem’s World.

Best National League Team: Los Angeles Dodgers
(Previously: Los Angeles Dodgers)

Did you know that Freddie Freeman is hitting .376? I had no idea that Freddie Freeman was hitting .376. He might be the JoeBlogs MVP, except that he missed a few games with injuries.

Tank Shark!: Colorado Rockies

OK, we’re adding a new feature this week called Tank Shark, where we pick the biggest tanker in the game.

This week’s answer is pretty simple — the Rockies are simply playing the worst baseball I can remember any team playing, including the White Sox last year. They are 7-34 with a minus-129 run differential, and we’re not even halfway through May.

BUT … we’ve got some other terrible teams out there that are either voluntarily or involuntarily tanking. The White Sox are definitely tanking and to good effect; they’re 12-29, and it’s a genuine surprise anytime they win. The Marlins are tanking but can’t keep up with the Rocks or Sox.

I don’t think the Pirates are purposely tanking — hey, they did just fire Derek Shelton to prove their seriousness — but they’re still managing to lose games in bunches.

I don’t know if you would call what Washington is doing “tanking,” but as usual, it ain’t going great there, and what in the world is the deal with Dylan Crews? I mean, you never know how a prospect will play until he gets to the big leagues, but there seemed absolutely no doubt that Dylan Crews would hit. And I still want to believe he will. But his first 70 games in the big leagues, yikes, he’s hitting .201/.265/.336 with an atrocious 68-19 strikeout-to-walk.I don’t get it at all.

Finally, Baltimore is definitely not tanking — heck, I’ve heard from countless people in and around Baltimore who insist that the team wasn’t tanking even when they lost 108-plus games three times from 2018-2021 — but they’re 15-24 and apparently striving to become the most disappointing team in baseball since … when? The 2015 Nationals? The 2008 Tigers? The 1987 Indians?

Kathleen’s Corner

• First, I want to say we are sending our thoughts to Yankees third baseman Oswaldo Cabrera, who left last night’s game by ambulance. I haven’t seen an update from the team, but I’m wishing him a speedy recovery!

• SNY Mets Director John DeMarsico went viral for his incredible cinema-inspired camerawork for the Mets. He released this video this morning, showing off some of his favorite shots.

• Michael Harris II had an incredible running catch for the Atlanta Braves.

• Angels third baseman Taylor Ward hit a go-ahead grand slam in the top of the ninth and the MLB social team had some fun with a Wicked-themed caption.