Same deal as yesterday. Other league.

AL MVP
1. Joe Mauer
2. Derek Jeter
3. Zack Greinke
4. Ben Zobrist
5. Evan Longoria
6. Miguel Cabrera
7. Dustin Pedroia
8. Kevin Youkilis
9. Mark Teixeira
10. Ichiro Suzuki

(click here to read more)

Mauer has had the MVP locked up since about July 1 as long as he could stay healthy. Not the actual MVP award -- it took the Twins' improbable playoff run to lock that up -- but the actual fact of being the league's Most Valuable Player (as I believe he has been for three of the past four years now). Jeter ends up #2 because I don't completely trust the crazy-awesome defensive numbers that gave Zobrist the league's #1 position player WAR (almost certainly #2 to Mauer if they tracked catcher defense at all). I don't often consider pitchers and the MVP award, but there's no reason not to, and you could make a strong case for Greinke at #1 (and Jonah Keri did). To be honest, 5-10 could go in almost any order, and you could fit Carl Crawford, Franklin Gutierrez and a few others in there too. The rankings among those six were pretty much all gut feeling.

Cy Young Award
1. Zack Greinke
2. Felix Hernandez
3. Roy Halladay

#1 is a no-brainer; certainly the best season by a pitcher since some season or other by Pedro. The rest is actually kind of difficult; by traditional measures, Felix is far and away the number two (19-5, 2.49), but by WAR (and I'm not as comfortable with how they figure that for pitchers as I am for hitters), he falls behind both Halladay and Justin Verlander. His FIP is also, uncoincidentally, fourth. But the actual results are too good to ignore. Maybe it was more the Mariners' incredible defense than it was Felix -- he did have a lower strikeout rate and slightly higher walk rate than did Verlander -- but a lot fewer runs scored when Felix pitched than when Justin did, and maybe that doesn't mean as much going forward (though somehow I think both of them will be just fine), but to me it means that Felix was the second-best pitcher in the league. Halladay over Verlander was a similarly tough decision, but Doc's ERA (and ERA+) were much lower, again, and Halladay struck out six guys for every one he walked.

Rookie of the Year
1. Elvis Andrus
2. Brett Anderson
3. Jeff Niemann

It's actually very close between these three. Brett Anderson had the best FIP among AL rookie pitchers, but the results weren't quite on par with Niemann's (probably comes from playing for the A's rather than in front of the bigs' second-best D). Niemann had a surprisingly good, near-full season as a starting pitcher, with a 3.94 ERA and a 116 ERA+ (legitimized by a 4.04 FIP). He showed good control, a decent strikeout rate and a better-than-average ability to get ground balls. All good things going forward. And he's about nine feet tall and looks like this. Andrus, on the other hand, wowed Rangers fans all year with his play at shortstop, and UZR was impressed too -- he led AL shortstops with a 10.4. Toss in that he didn't embarrass himself with the bat and stole 33 bases in 39 attempts, and that's an awfully impressive year for a kid who played most of the year at age 20.Ultimately, I think it's basically a three-way toss-up, and I'm picking the guy who's going to have the best career.

Gordon Beckham has a decent chance to be even better, and he was certainly impressive with the stick in his first full pro season, but Andrus got more than 100 more plate appearances, and Beckham didn't really offer anything with the glove.

Manager of the Year
1. Don Wakamatsu
2. Ron Washington
3. Mike Scioscia

You were expecting maybe this trim 'n' handsome fella?
I mean, what am I going to do? Lar says I have to pick a MOY. Wakamatsu seemed like a pretty solid guy. A little bunt-happy, and he certainly doesn't deserve as much credit for the Mariners' turnaround as GM Jack Zduriencik does, but I think he's as good a pick as any. Washington led the other really surprising team in the league, and I think it's entirely possible that, were I a Rangers fan, I'd get just as frustrated with him as I do with Gardenhire. But everybody seems to like him. Scioscia will get lots of attention (and I think he'll probably win) for leading the team after the Adenhart tragedy. And I really don't mean to trivialize that at all, but was it really likely that the entire team -- clearly the most talented team of professionals in its division, injury setbacks and all -- was going to fall completely apart without Scioscia's guiding hand? Could be, I suppose, but I tend to doubt it. No doubt he deserves a lot of credit (as does the entire rest of the team) for pulling them through, but ultimately, they were supposed to win, and they won.