Baseball Digest has revealed the winners of its Player, Pitcher and Relief Pitcher of the Year, with the awards going as follows:
Player of the Year
Mookie Betts Boston Red Sox.
Mookie Betts became the first Red Sox position player to win Baseball Digest’s award in its 50-year history, largely thanks to his 32 home runs and 30 base steals. He also led the majors with a 0.640 slugging percentage.
Others considered for the award included team mate J.D. Martinez, Chicago Cubs infielder Javier Baez and LA Angels center fielder Mike Trout.
Pitcher of the Year
Jacob deGrom New York Mets
deGrom was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise disappointing season for the Mets and not surprisingly he received all 15 first-place votes from the committee. Although he finished the season with a mediocre 10-9 record (winning his final two starts to achieve this) his underlying stats were top notch including a 1.70 ERA, 269 strike outs from 217 innings pitched and only 10 home runs allowed. Had he been given some run support he could have set some records. Anyway he might still go down in history this year as he could (and in our opinion should) win the Cy Young, award and his 10 wins would be the fewest ever by a winning starting pitcher. The current low is 13, set by Fernando Valenzuela for the Dodgers in 1981. That honour will be announced in November.
Relief Pitcher of the Year
Blake Treinen Oakland Athletics
Oakland to most people’s surprise made their postseason appearance since 2014, this year much of this was down to their shut down bullpen of which Blake Treinen was the star. His stats included 38 saves, 100 strikeouts in 80 1/3 innings pitched and a league leading 0.78 ERA (0.78). What probably clinched it in a great year for relievers was his run-in performance only allowing one earned run during his final 27 regular season outings. Runner up Edwin Diaz of the Seattle Mariners also had a great season and in other years might have taken first place.
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