Monday, November 03, 2008

Hot Stove 2008: Happy Winter!

Although baseball’s Hot Stove League (“HSL”) officially begins about two seconds after the final out of the World Series, it is more or less accepted that the HSL starts we start hearing about the various regular season awards and, of course, once the free agent signing moratorium is lifted on November 14th.

In order to kick off the HSL, here are the relevant dates to keep in mind (along with my predictions):

Nov. 10: AL and NL Rookie of the Year awards (MJ says Evan Longoria / Geovany Soto)
Nov. 11: NL Cy Young Award (MJ says Tim Lincecum)
Nov. 12: AL and NL Manager of the Year awards (MJ says Joe Maddon / Lou Piniella)
Nov. 13: AL Cy Young Award (MJ says Cliff Lee)
Nov. 17: NL Most Valuable Player award (MJ says Albert Pujols)
Nov. 18: AL Most Valuable Player award (MJ says Dustin Pedroia)

Remember, these are regular season awards. Case in point, even though Joe Maddon (and to a lesser extent, Lou Piniella) was out-managed in the playoffs, this award is essentially a reward for the managers with the best record or something else equally irrelevant and/or goofy.

No comments: