Post Season baseball awards and AFL results

Cy Young Award winners:
AL - Zach Greinke
NL - Tim Lincecum

MVP Award winners:
AL - Joe Mauer
NL - Albert Pujols

I can't argue against either of these four choices. Mauer may be the face of baseball as Jeter moves on in years, a solid, Ripken-Jeter personality that will help market the game for the next ten years. Pujols is making up for the years he was blocked by Bonds. Greinke and Lincecum both toiled for sub-par teams with dominance and flair.

Special congratulations to Tim Lincecum for his second consecutive Cy Young. Timmy may have benefited from a tug of war among voters to figure out who was the top Cardinal candidate. The vote splitting between Carpenter and Wainwright had to help Lincecum.

Is it just me or does it seem as if voters are more likely to reward a pitcher from a bad team who pitches at the elite level but less likely to do the same for a hitter? I know Andre Dawson won NL MVP a while back, but I see that and raise you a Steve Carlton. It just seems like here is a different standard for hitters--perhaps because they are out there every day--as far as voters holding them more accountable for a teams success.

Anyway, maybe this balances out the infraction with the pipe. At least he didn't pull an Angel Villalona and cap somebody....allegedly. Maybe somebody should tell Timmy he's about to become the face of the franchise and be paid accordingly, he can't be getting caught with a bowl of weed like he was some high school junior in his mom's car. Embarrassing.

Speaking of prospects, future starting catcher Buster Posey did in fact flirt with the Mendoza line for most of the Arizona Fall League before "rallying" to end somewhere around the "Bud Harrelson" line. Even more disturbing was the increased strike out rate. Somewhere in the 100+ K's per 500 AB's rate. I don't know if this is enough for Sabean to go cuckoo for Benji Molina or if perhaps bringing in a veteran backup catcher who could play a week or two at a time may be the better answer.

I would have preferred that Posey cleared things up with a knockout AFL stint, but he didn't, so the door is open for Sabean mischief and tom-foolery. Hopefully, they've instituted some sort of multiple levels of organizational sign off before he goes running naked through the field of old, overpriced free-agents with the corporate checkbook in one hand and Lord knows what else in the other.

On a brighter note, both OF Thomas Neal and SS Brandon Crawford both hit around or over the .300 mark most of the year. Both should begin next year at AA-AAA level and will be no more than a phone call away.

I didn't see anything out of any of the pitcher's stats that made me think a major league position was in the future. But I could be wrong.