Baseball's First Half

It's the All-Star break and so The Monk gives out his awards for the first half of the season. In a weird first-half, I'll also recount how my early season picks are doing.

AL MVP: Brian Roberts, Orioles. The birds are in the mix and the main reason offensively is the emergence of Roberts. With Javy Lopez injured and Sammy Sosa not right with ball, the O's have received a huge boost from the 1st half batting champ who's combined surprising pop (15 HR, 49 RBI, .591 SLG%, 2nd in OPS) with a high average (.345) and speed (18 SB). Runners-up: A-Rod (23 HR, 72 RBI, .998 OPS), Ortiz (21-75-.982), Texeira (25-73-.930, 2nd in runs).

AL Cy Young: Right now, this is a two-man race and it's not the two (Halladay/Buerhle) that most consider. Instead, for the first half the 1-2 are Halladay and Mariano Rivera. Crazy? Not at all. Halladay is the ERA leader, 12-4 with just 118 hits and 18 BB in 141.2 IP, five complete games and a pair of shutouts. He dwarfs Buerhle on ratio (Buerhle has allowed 151 hits puls walks in 136 IP), wins (12-10) and intangibles because Halladay's allowed only one unearned run, Buerhle 10. Roger Clemens always says he can get four outs in an inning, Halladay's done that better than Buerhle. Kenny Rogers has pitched 19-24 fewer innings than Buerhle and Halladay, so his similar numbers are less impressive.

Why Rivera? Mo is putting up knockout numbers: 20 straight saves, 4 ER in 35.2 IP (1.01 ERA) and a .156 opponents' batting average. Other than strikeouts per 9, he's not far away from what Eric Gagne did in 2003. Will it last? Who knows, but Mo has been absolutely deadly since his inauspicious and rusty start of the year against the RedSawx (when he suffered from lack of spring training time, too).

And no, Jon Garland doesn't rate -- his 13-4 record is nice, his 3.38 ERA is pedestrian. Despite Roger Clemens' win in 2001, I still think the second-best pitcher on one's own team shouldn't win the Cy Young Award.

AL Rookie of the Year: Huston Street in a walk at this point. His ERA is sub 1.50 and he's now the closer for the resurgent A's. Other considerations go to Chien-Ming Wang and Robinson Cano of the Yanks, Tad Iguchi of the White Sox. Dallas McPherson and Nick Swisher need to bulk up the batting averages to rate.

AL Manager of the year: Ozzie Guillen at this point. It's not close.

NL MVP: Derek Lee is the no-doubter. First in HR, first in average by 40 points, second in RBI, 1.186 OPS. The Cubs would resemble the Rockies without him. And the fact that the Cubs are only mediocre means little: D Lee is a triple crown candidate with numbers far superior to anyone else. At the end of the year (after he levels off some), we'll talk about best player from the best team. Others: Albert Pujols may win this by the end of the year because he's being himself (22-69-.338-1.023); Carlos Lee has been great and Morgan Ensberg and Andruw Jones bring up the next level.

NL Cy Young: this is the most contentious race but only because the Astros sucked for April and May. Clemens is having a Bob Gibson 1968 type season (or Pedro 1999-2000). The Rocket is 7-3, 1.48, opponent batting average of .188, opponent OPS of .509. In Pedro's best season (2000) his opponent OPS = .473, and OBA = .167. In other words, Clemens isn't far off from one of the five best pitching seasons in history. Dontrelle Willis has a nice record (13-4), nice ERA (2.39), is having a great year . . . and is at best a distant #2 with Roy Oswalt #3.

NL Rookie: The first half should go to Washington's Ryan Church (.325 avg, .924 OPS in a pitchers' division) over Lance Niekro of the Giants.

NL Manager: Now, Frank Robinson without question. If the Braves make the playoffs after all the injuries they've had an inexperience they've dealt with, it's Bobby Cox, period.

Biggest surprise: The White Sox. They've gone the speed route and used good starting pitching (Buerhle and Garland with career years in progress) to lap the field in the AL Central. Second-biggest: Les Nationales.

Biggest flops: The Yanks (especially Pavano and Johnson, but the Sawx only lead by 2.5 at the break), the Astros for two months (but they're rebounding), the oft-injured Cubs.

The Monk's picks: AL East = Yanks 2.5 back; AL Central = Twins 9 back; AL West = Angels 5 up; NL East = Braves 2.5 back; NL Central = Astros (just to be contrary) 11 back but climbing in the Wild Card; NL West = Padres 5.5 up in the worst division in the majors.

Travesty of the year: Scott Posednik beating Derek Jeter for the Final Man slot on the All-Star team. That's ridiculous. Posednik leads the AL in steals by a mile but still trails Jeter in runs by 20, not to mention the OPS, HR, RBI, etc. gaps that Jeter has over Posednik. What a pathetic effort by White Sawx fans and players to rig that vote.