2007 MLB MVP and Cy Young Award Predictions

The awards are not actually announced until after the World Series, so what happens in the post season isn't supposed to matter. But as we all know the best will excel at that point and the "cream will rise to the top" when it matters most......usually.

There were very few run away winners like in years past. For example did anyone think that someone other than Roger Maris would win the AL MVP in 1961 or that Pedro Martinez wouldn't win the Cy Young in 1999? Maris broke the single season homerun record and led the Yankees to the World Series. In 1999 Martinez went 23-4 with an E.R.A. of 2.07 and struck out 313 batters. This year's awards are going to be as close as the National League Wild-Card winner was. Some of the awards came down to the very last week of the season to see who could separate themselves from the rest.

AL MVP

We are looking at basically three guys for this, Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees, David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox and Magglio Ordonez of the Detroit Tigers. The first thing we generally look at is stats.

Name Avg. Runs HR RBI

Rodriguez .314 143 54 156

Ortiz .332 116 35 117

Ordonez .363 117 28 139

The stats show that Alex Rodriguez far and away leads the others. I think these stats don't tell the whole story for this award though. We also need to look at what they meant to their team (to prove their Most Valuable Player status). This is what separates Rodriguez from the others. He alone scored 14% of his team's runs, knocked in 17% of their runs and hit 54 of the Yankee's 201 homeruns.

Winner: Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees

NL MVP

Taking the same approach as the AL version we look at Matt Holliday of the Colorado Rockies, Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves, Jimmy Rollins from the Philadelphia Phillies and Prince Fielder from the Milwaukee Brewers. Here is the basic stat break down.

Name Avg. Runs HR RBI

Holliday .340 120 36 137

Jones .337 108 29 102

Rollins .296 139 30 94

Fielder .288 109 50 119

Now thinking about what these guys did for their teams is where we see the difference much like the American League version. Jones and Fielder lead their teams but the Braves were out of the running for the playoffs for most of the season and the Brewers fell short in the last weekend. Rollins and Holliday lead the Phillies and Rockies into the playoffs. What separates Matt Holliday from the others is what he did in September and October for the final push for the playoffs. Holliday hit .365 with 12 homeruns during that 27 game span.

Winner: Matt Holliday, Colorado Rockies

AL Cy Young

There are basically four candidates here. C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona of the Cleveland Indians, Josh Beckett from the Boston Red Sox and John Lackey from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim were head and shoulders above the rest of the pitchers. There were other pitchers who had 18 wins but had a high ERA and less strikeouts. Now looking at the basic stats for each of them:

Name Record ERA Strikeouts

Sabathia 19-7 3.21 209

Beckett 20-7 3.27 194

Lackey 19-9 3.01 179

Carmona 19-8 3.06 137

The records are very similar, the rest of the stats pretty close. Once again we need to look at their importance to their team. This is where I think Josh Beckett separates himself from the rest. The Red Sox were 1-2 in Beckett's no decisions but in each of those games the Sox were winning when Beckett left. He also went 5-3 against this year's playoff teams, where the other pitchers up for the award didn't face the playoff teams as often.

Winner: Josh Beckett, Boston Red Sox

NL Cy Young

This is the one award that I feel is a run away win. Jake Peavy of the San Diego Padres lead the National League with 19 wins, an ERA 2.54, 240 strikeouts and opponents .272 on-base-percentage. There really wasn't any one pitcher in the National League to put up the stats that Peavy did. Peavy put the Padres on his shoulders during August and September going 9-1 with two no-decisions in the push to try to get to the playoffs.

Winner: Jake Peavy, San Diego Padres