stacking up the award winners

I want to give a little context to the annual Cape League awards so here’s a look at how this year’s winners compare to the winners in recent years. This isn’t intended to determine who’s better among all these players in all these different years. It’s just to understand where this year’s award-winning performances fall in the big picture.

MVP

* – calculated from incomplete stats, so it’s close but not exact

There are really two types of players on the MVP list — those hitting for power and those hitting for average. In every case prior to this year, those were mutually exclusive chracteristics. Gillaspie is the only one in the last five years to break the mold. Among the power hitters, his average is by far the best. And among the average hitters — who, like Gillaspie, won batting titles and the MVP trophy — his home run total and slugging percentage are by far the highest. He’s also got the highest on-base percentage, one that puts him in a class by himself.

Really, that’s where Gillaspie was all summer. Interestingly, he had some decent competition for the MVP award from guys like Gordon Beckham and Jason Castro. But Gillaspie finished in front of them, and when you stack him up against past MVP winners, he’s even further ahead.

For those who are curious, Longoria, Carte and and Holt are all in the minor leagues, and Smoak will be a high draft pick next year.

BATTING CHAMP

* – calculated from incomplete stats, so it’s close but not exact

Again, Gillaspie’s numbers stand way out. Patterson and Coghlan both have similar average and RBI numbers — and Patterson is close in home runs — but Gillaspie is still well ahead of them in slugging, which comes from all his extra-base hits. He’s also pretty far in front in on-base percentage.

OUTSTANDING PITCHER

I really thought Falmouth’s Aaron Crow and his .67 ERA would get this award, but he ended up winning the top pro prospect award instead. I’m not sure if that had an impact on Crow not winning this one, but I know what thing that did have an impact — wins. Crow only had three, and as you can gather from looking at this list, wins are a key part of the award qualifications. I’m even tempted to say wins were the one thing that pushed Milone to the top. Of the seven starters who had ERA’s under 2.00, none of them had more than three wins. Milone’s ERA was pretty far over two but he had the wins going for him.

Terry Doyle — the co-winner last year — had as many wins as Milone and a lower ERA, but in this case, I’m guessing it was Milone’s K:BB ratio that set him apart. Doyle struck out 41 but walked 30. Milone struck out 46 and walked only seven in 52.1 innings.

(As a side note, when commissioner Paul Galop presented the award to Milone, he mentioned that the league uses 10 categories to select this award. I find this interesting. I always thought these awards were more subjective than that. Also, I can’t figure out what the 10 categories would be. W, L, ERA, K, BB, WHIP? That’s only six. I’m going to try to ask somebody what these 10 categories are.)

In comparison to past years, a lot of Milone’s numbers don’t quite match up. His ERA is the highest on this list and his strikeout total is the second-lowest. Perhaps this lends credence to the idea that this was a down year for pitching on the Cape. Nobody had a year like Goyen, who struck out 80 or a year like Beattie and Seibert, who had .39 ERA’s.

But I don’t want to take anything away from Milone. He was very impressive when I saw him, and he has a bright future ahead of him.

As for the futures of some of the guys on this list, Miller was a top-10 pick last year and is in the big leagues, Doyle will be back to Boston College next year, and Seibert was a projected as a high pick befor an injury. Norton, Goyen, Beattie and Rogers are all in the minor leagues. Rogers is in Triple A in the Pittsburgh organization as a reliever.


OUTSTANDING RELIEF PITCHER

If you lead the league in saves, you’re probably winning this award. Everybody on this list other than Marcum — who was a co-winner — finished with the most saves. Cassavechia’s numbers are comparabale to everybody on the list. He may have had the fewest K’s but he also had the fewst walks and a K/BB ratio of 8.00, better than anybody on the list.

Cape League closers are always an interesting group. Some of them are big-time prospects with big arms but not enough stamina to be starters. Others are future starters trying to save their arms in the summer. Others are closers by trade, and a lot of them seem to be guys who aren’t very tall or very big but who seem to fit a certain mold. Plenty of those great college closer types — like Chad Cordero and Huston Street — have big success.

In terms of where these players are now, Wright, Whelan and Marcum have all become starters. Marcum is in the majors with the Blue Jays.

TOP PRO PROSPECT

Always one of the most interesting awards, the top pro prospect gives some insight into what the scouts thought of the Cape league summer. This year, they really liked Crow. The righthander flashed a mid-90’s fastball that occasionally got up to 98. Doing it as a starter and putting up good numbers to match only helped cement Crow’s status.

To compare, I only put the pitchers who won the award on the above list. Miller, as mentioned in the outstanding pitcher category, is already in the bigs. Townsend is in Class A. Brownlie has overcome some injuries and moved to Double A.

As far as draft position, the winner of this award almost always ends up being a first-round pick. A look at the last few years:

• 2006 – Matt Wieters – 5th overall pick in ’07
• 2005 – Andrew Miller – 6th overall pick in ’06
• 2004 – Tyler Greene – 30th oveall pick in ’05
• 2003 – Wade Townsend – 8th overall pick in ’04 and ’05
• 2002 – Wes Whisler – 53rd overall pick in ’04
• 2001 – Russ Adams – 14th overall pick in ’02
• 2000 – Bob Brownlie – 21st overall pick in ’02
• 1999 – Mark Teixieria – 5th overall pick in ’01

So you can bet Crow will be one of the top picks come next June.

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