Here are some midseason awards and notes:
MVP repeat? Eleven different players have been named the Most Valuable Player in the league three times. Only one, Barry Bonds with seven, has won more than three. That will change this next off-season when Shohei Ohtani wins for the fourth time.
The Dodger star is once again putting up breath-taking numbers like a league best 29 home runs and a major league high 82 runs scored.
It figures to be a repeat of 2024 as Aaron Judge looks to win yet another MVP, which will put him at three, the same as other Yankee legends Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle and Alex Rodriguez (who won two of his three in New York, the other in Texas).
Best non-trade: The best trade that wasn’t actually a trade was the Yankees letting Juan Soto go and using that money to sign Max Fried. The former San Diego Padres first-round pick (they traded him to Atlanta!) signed for eight years and $218 million. He’s been one of the best pitchers in baseball the first half of the season with a 10-2 record and 1.92 ERA and will challenge Detroit’s Tarik Skubal for the American League Cy Young Award.
Center stage for centerfield: Early in the season the Dodgers and Angels looked to have holes in their offense via centerfield. Both Andy Pages in L.A. and Jo Adell in Anaheim were proving anemic at the plate.
But this past month both have been red-hot. Pages, the 24-year-old from Cuba, is hitting .291 with 16 home runs and a team-high (tied) 54 RBIs. Adell, who has struggled since being picked in the first round in 2017, hit 12 home runs in June, most in the majors, and now has 18 on the year.
Easy vote: The most lopsided voting for a postseason award should be for the American League Rookie of the Year. Jacob Wilson (from tiny Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, alma mater of Tim Salmon) is hitting a robust .340 for the homeless A’s.
Can You See Me Now? Dodgers third-baseman Max Muncy was hitting .188 with one home run and 8 RBI on May 3. Cries to bench him came from every level of Dodger Stadium. So Max tried wearing glasses. Why not? Since then he’s hitting .288 with eight homers and 33 RBIs! Any questions?
Rocky Mountain Low: The Colorado Rockies have won just 19 games (the Dodgers have won 53). They’ve lost 65. That’s a 38-130 record, worse than even last year’s White Sox team that went 42-121. In fact no team has won fewer games than 38 games since the 1919 Philadelphia A’s.
As Casey Stengel would say: “Can’t anyone here play this game.”?
A Sad Good-Bye: Just weeks before he would be inducted into the Hall of Fame, Pittsburgh Pirate great Dave Parker passed away at the age of 74. As they say, timing is everything in baseball. RIP Cobra.
Pete Donovan is a Palm Desert resident and former Los Angeles Times sports reporter. He can be reached atpwdonovan22@yahoo.com
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Dishing out some Major League Baseball midseason awards
Reporting by Pete Donovan / Palm Springs Desert Sun
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