Wednesday, March 26, 2008

National League Preview +

I forget to list my predictions for individual awards.

MVP: Jose Reyes NYM
Darkhorse MVP: Ryan Braun MIL
Best Player on Bad Team: Hanley Ramirez FLA

The NL East has three of the best shortstops in the game with Reyes, Rollins and Ramirez (nickname needed). Reyes is the most exciting player in the game and the most valuable player to his team. If the Mets win the NL East, Reyes should win the MVP, but his teammate David Wright will probably steal some votes. Ryan Braun will be playing a full season for the Brewers and like the Nationals did with Soriano they moved him to Left Field so his god awful filed skills won't be as much of a problem. Hanley Ramirez, who came to FLA in the Josh Beckett trade has been putting up MVP like numbers on a bad team. If Ramirez is lucky like most Marlins, ownership will ship him out and he will be an instant MVP contender assuming he is dealt to a good team.

Cy Young: Brandon Webb ARI (I don't want to pick the obvious Santana)
Darkhorse: John Maine NYM
Best Pitcher on a Bad Team: Tom Gorzelanny PIT

The National League Cy Young is wide open. The league is incredibly deep in pitching and some teams have more than one contender on them. I picked Webb because I didn't wnat to pick Santana and his innings will go down as he will be taken out in the later innings now for a pinch hitter. Santana, Webb, Peavy and Zambrano are front runners with many darkhorses shortly behind. John Maine moving down in the rotation with the addition of Santana and Pedro's health should get better matchups and add to his 15 win total of last year. Gorzelanny won 14 games for the Pirates last year with a 3.88 ERA. Keep in mind the Pirates only won 68 games, if my math is right, and its probably not, thats slighty above 20 percent of the teams wins. The Pirates have a surprisingly good young staff with Snell, Duke, Gorzelanny and Matt Morris, who is not young by any stretch of the imagination.

No comments: