The BP Staff weighs in with their mid-season ballots, showing who they think deserves an MVP, Cy Young Award, and Rookie of the Year.
Bill Mueller has done more than anyone in Boston dared hope. Jose Guillen’s shocking first-half success has helped make up for Felipe Lopez’s struggles in Cinicinnati. Rondell White and Mark Loretta could fetch some intriguing young talent for San Diego before the trade deadline. These and other news notes from the Red Sox, Reds, and Padres in this edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
Well, we’ve made it through the Futures Game and Home Run Derby without anyone getting injured. There’s still tomorrow’s game–the one that “counts”–however, and I’m halfway expecting somebody to go all Pete Rose on some catcher. Let’s just hope that the players aren’t buying into the hype as much as the entire Fox network seems to be.
That said, as expected, it was a quiet day on Monday, which gave people more time to check out the archive of Baseball Prospectus Radio and email me. People were equally divided on whether it was good interview with Jim Palmer or a blindside hatchet job. Let me assure you the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and that Mr. Palmer had more than one opportunity to speak for himself, and he declined each opportunity. I’ve given his agent the message that he has an open invitation for a full hour on BPR to discuss the game in whatever format he wishes, so I’ve done all I can to be fair despite my desire to go Paul Teutel on him. Let’s hope he does all he can to educate himself about the game he played so well.
I say this every year, but only because the thought dominates my brain for 72 hours each July: I hate the All-Star break. Two days with no games sandwiched around an exhibition contest. Yuck. Anyway, here are my midseason awards ballots, which missed the deadline to be included in the BP staff balloting by a hair or dozen. If you’re new to this column, welcome to my biases: I favor performance at up-the-middle positions, and I try to strip what a player has done from the context in which he did it as much as I can.