Baseball Junkies: Annual Predictions (Part Two)

HERSH



AL MVP - Mike Trout
NL MVP - Buster Posey

AL CY - Jered Weaver
NL CY - Madison Baumgartner

AL MOY - Joe Girardi
NL MOY - Bryan Price

AL Comeback - Michael Pineda
NL Comeback - Tim Hudson

AL ROY - Masahiro Tanaka
NL ROY - Billy Hamilton


AL Most Excited to Watch - Prince Fielder... New digs will revamp Prince's home run swing and look for him to have monster year.

AL Most Excited to Watch -  Stephen Strasburg... Look for him to start getting it together this year.




MC

AL MVP – Mike Trout
NL MVP – Freddie Freeman

AL CY – Yu Darvish
NL CY – Clayton Kershaw

AL MOY – Mike Scoscia
NL MOY – Mike Matheny

AL ROY – Masahiro Tanaka
NL ROY – Billy Hamilton

AL Comeback – Mark Teixeira
NL Comeback – Ryan Braun

AL Most Excited – Albert Pujols
NL Most Excited – Jose Fernandez



I think this may be the year that Trout unseats Cabrera. In the NL, could go to McCutchen again or possibly Goldschmidt. I think the Cardinals will take votes away from each other and possibly open the door for Freeman to nab the award if he proves last year wasn’t a fluke. Darvish and Kershaw are perennial contenders and should be again. I think Scoscia competes for his job and comes through with the Angels really turning things around this year. Matheny has continued the Cardinals tradition of excellence since LaRussa left and should get some recognition if they take the division again. Some consideration may go to Mattingly for the “Joe Torre Factor” of managing superstar personalities. I almost went with Pujols for comeback because I can’t imagine his career is done already. Ultimately, I picked Teixeira as coming back from injury will yield him more impact return numbers over Pujols. I am excited to see Pujols play and to see if he can get back to dominating the league. Although Braun is a PED user, he will most likely have a good year leading him to a comeback nomination. In the NL, it will be exciting to see if Jose Fernandez is for real and can dominate on a bad team. It would have been fascinating to see him and Matt Harvey battle it out again in the East this year.


OCP

AL MVP  - Mike Trout
NL MVP - Bryce Harper

AL Cy - Felix Hernandez
NL Cy - Clayton Kershaw

AL MOY - Lloyd McClendon
NL MOY - Ryne Sandberg

AL Comeback - Neftali Feliz
NL Comeback - Brett Anderson

AL ROY - Jose Abreu
NL ROY - Kolten Wong

AL/NL Most Excited to Watch -

My picks for "most excited to watch" are very cliché because they’re my MVP choices.  But I'd be lying if I said anything else.  I think that this is the year we see the two biggest stars of this up-and-coming generation (Trout and Harper) competing against one another (albeit different leagues) to prove who is the face of MLB for the next 5-10 years.

Trout… the Angels should be better and if they’re better, Trout could put up numbers we’ve never seen before.

Harper… overshadowed by Trout so far in his career, I think Harper is ready to send us a friendly reminder of just how good he really is. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hit 40 HR.

As for the Cy picks, I guess Felix could be considered a surprise pick.  Although it seems like he's been around forever, King Felix is only going to be 28 this year... I think that with some help on the offensive side (Robinson Cano) and a new fiery manager, we could see a great season from Felix.

Don't be surprised by Jose Abreu.  The Cuban defector does a lot of things well (including hitting the long ball).  His projections are out there (Steamer has him triple slashing .269/.353/.535)... if he comes anywhere near the numbers they're suggesting, he could be a lock for this award.