Thursday, September 01, 2011

SI's Jon Heyman Has Kershaw For The Cy Young, But Kemp Fifth In MVP Race

Heyman's giving the love to Clayton Kershaw, but not so much for Matt Kemp. First, the Minotaur:

NL Cy Young

1. Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers SP. Has outside chance for pitching Triple Crown in NL, though he's slightly behind for wins (ranking second, with 16) and ERA (third, 2.51) at present.

2. Roy Halladay. His usual season -- 15-5, 2.56 ERA, league-leading marks for complete games and strikeouts per walk, only nets him second place here.

3. Cliff Lee, Phillies SP. Close to a dead heat with teammate Cole Hamels and two-time winner Tim Lincecum

As for the NL MVP race:

NL MVP

1. Ryan Braun, Brewers OF. Terrific all-around players gets slight nod over teammate Prince Fielder. His .999 OPS is tops in the NL.

2. Prince Fielder, Brewers 1B. If this is his going away party, it's been a special one for the free-agent-to-be. He has 29 home runs and 102 RBIs for the NL Central's first-place team and gets points for being a leader in the clubhouse, too.

3. Justin Upton, Diamondbacks OF. Another great trade not made, Upton, whose name was talked about last winter, is the clear star of the upstart D-backs. Upton leads first-place Arizona in batting average, home runs, RBIs, on-base percentage and slugging and is tied for the team-high in stolen bases.

4. Shane Victorino, Phillies OF. His superb all-around season has gone mostly under the radar until lately, but he is eighth in the league in OPS and second in triples.

5. Matt Kemp, Dodgers OF. Best position player in the league following his disappointing 2010 season. His .320 average is 71 points higher than a year ago and he leads the league with 31 home runs.

Heyman even has Halladay, his #2 best NL pitcher, ranked #7 in the NL MVP race (Kershaw doesn't even make the top ten). Weird.

4 comments:

Steve Weinman said...

The highlight for me here is Heyman calling Kemp the "best position player in the league" all the while deciding four other position players are more valuable than he is.

-sw

Orlando Zepeda said...

Does anyone speak Chinese?

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Cash-from-China-McCourt-offered-1-2-billion-to;_ylt=Ajf5JyzR_aHM1LD8cwWAWp4RvLYF?urn=mlb-wp18105

rbnlaw said...

No, but I speak Jive.

Fielder can't be considered before Kemp. Kemp with over 30 steals and Fielder with over 30 trips to the buffet table per night.

I mean, he's one talented fat guy, but no MVP.

Fred's Brim said...

OZ - Hong-Chih Kuo has even more reason to be nervous now