Dodgers First Half Awards

Best Offensive Player- Corey Seager

That was easy.

Seager made waves on the major league team at the end of last season, posting a .337/.421/.525 slash from September 3rd to October 4th. He had hits in 21 of the 27 games he played in (and reached base in all but three). As a 21 year old, thrown into the fire of a pennant race.

Seager has followed that up with a .297/.357/.521 slash in 389 plate appearances this season. His 17 homers are fourth among real shortstops (excluding Manny Machado) and his 135 wRC+ is second among real shortstops (seriously go away Machado). His defense has been better than expected, so maybe despite his size he can stick at shortstop for a while before having to move over to third base, where his excellent bat will be a little less valuable.

Seager has been the Dodgers’ rock on offense this season. He has yet to go more than two games without a hit and has often been the lone bright spot in an often-struggling offense. He’s only 22, so wait until he actually figures out the majors.

Seager is the obvious choice for best offensive player and rookie of the year. For this slideshow’s sake, I’m only talking about the first-half Dodgers. But there’s a very good chance he remains a frontrunner for NL Rookie of the Year, and an outside chance he sneaks into the MVP discussions if the Dodgers get hot.

Best Offensive Player Honorable Mentions- Chase Utley, Adrian Gonzalez (minus June)

Rookie of the year Honorable Mentions- Kenta Maeda

Next: Worst Offensive Player

Worst Offensive Player- Yasmani Grandal/Early-Season Justin Turner

Despite what has been a generally bad offense, there’s not really one major culprit for the Dodgers’ offensive struggles this season. It’s been a mix of Yasmani Grandal struggling and getting BABIP’d, Adrian Gonzalez losing his power, pretty much everyone but Corey Seager having an elongated slump, injuries.

I can’t be too hard on Grandal. He’s been bad for most of the season so far on offense, but that is a thing that can be said about most catchers. Catchers generally don’t get paid to do things on offense. Every team wants a Buster Posey or a Jonathan Lucroy who can be a big bat in the middle of any lineup, but there are like three of those guys every couple years.

I had to cheat a little bit to get a decent number of catchers, but among 32 catchers with 150 or more plate appearances this season, Grandal is tied for 11th in WAR. His batting average is an abysmal .212 (and it only got that high in the last couple weeks), but he’s in the upper half of catchers in OBP and Slugging and his 106 wRC+ is 11th. Grandal has been the weak part of the Dodger offense, but as a catcher he isn’t expected to be a slugger.

Turner looked like a runaway candidate for the biggest disappointment on offense, but he’s turned it around as well. His triple slash is the lowest it’s been as a Dodger, but it’s trending upwards of late and he’s only three home runs away from matching his career high, which he set last year. A strong second half could go a long way not only for the Dodgers, but for getting Turner a big pay raise in free agency.

Dishonorable Mentions- Adrian Gonzalez’s power, Carl Crawford, Enrique Hernandez, A.J. Ellis, Scott Van Slyke

Next: Best Pitcher

Best Pitcher- Clayton Kershaw

Much like with Seager, Kershaw’s “best pitcher” award could apply not only to the Dodgers, but to all of baseball.

There’s not much left to be said about Kershaw’s excellence. He’s been the best pitcher in baseball for a while now, and he’s had his finest season thus far. Last year, Kershaw struck out 301 batters and had a 2.13 ERA/1.99 FIP, but finished third in Cy Young voting mainly thanks to a below-par start to the season (4.32 ERA through nine starts). He had a torrid second half and left many, myself included, wondering what type of numbers he could put up if he kept that pace up all season.

He’s somehow surpassed even those expectations. His 1.79 ERA is the lowest in baseball by .15, but is somehow only the second-best number of his career (1.77 in 2014). His FIP that year was 1.81, his FIP this year is 1.70. He won the MVP that year. He might win the MVP this year. His 5.5 WAR leads pitchers by 1.5 and is tied with Mike Trout for the highest mark in all of baseball. This is despite a back injury that forced him to hit the DL a couple weeks ago.

The real tragedy about Kershaw’s injury is that it may prevent him from striking out 300 batters for the second consecutive season. Last season, along with those 301 strikeouts, he walked 49 batters. This year, with 145 strikeouts, he’s walked nine. As my favorite writer points out here, three of the first five could have been avoided by robot umps. I’m sure Kershaw has been the beneficiary of some calls as well, but basically what I’m trying to say is that he’s amazing and has no foreseeable threat for his “best pitcher in the world” crown.

Honorable Mentions- ~HUUUUUGE GAP~, Kenley Jansen ~SLIGHTLY SMALLER GAP~, Kenta Maeda, Joe Blanton, Adam Liberatore.

Next: Worst Pitcher

Worst Pitcher- Chris Hatcher

I’ve long been a defender of Hatcher, but in a bullpen full of pleasant surprises, Hatcher has undoubtably been the sore spot.

Hatcher has been the victim of reliever ERA. He’s had scoreless appearances in 22 of 34 outings this season. He’s also inherited 15 runners and allowed three to score. Those numbers are not horrible.

In the 12 outings that Hatcher has allowed runs in, he’s allowed 21 runs. He’s allowed one run five times, two runs five times and three runs twice. When Hatcher is good, he tends to be really good. When he’s bad, he is really bad.

Hatcher has seen his strikeouts drop a little and his walks increase a little. The main reason for his struggles has been an increase in hard-contact rate (39.4 percent, up from 33.3 percent last season).

Hatcher still has the potential to be a key piece of the bullpen moving forward, but his Dodger career has not been good thus far. He was phenomenal down the stretch last year, so Dodger fans can only hope for a similar run to strengthen an already strong bullpen. Patience is deservingly wearing thin with Hatcher, and when Yimi Garcia and Frankie Montas are healthy, it might be hard to justify keeping Hatcher on the roster.

Dishonorable Mentions- Pedro Baez, Mike Bolsinger

Next: Best Offseason Move

Best Offseason Move- Signing Joe Blanton

If I had the technology/desire, I would have made a word cloud of words used in comments/on twitter by Dodger fans when Joe Blanton was signed. The word cloud would contain many bad words and probably have to be censored on this site.

The Dodgers signed Blanton to a one year, $4 million deal as a reliever after a good year of relief pitching in Kansas City and Pittsburgh last season. Many Dodger fans remembered the failed deadline acquisition of Blanton in 2012, but reliever Blanton has been a huge reason the Dodger bullpen has been as good as they’ve been.

He was originally signed as a long reliever and had a rough start to the season. He threw a scoreless inning in San Diego in his first Dodger relief appearance, but the Dodgers literally didn’t allow a run in those three games. His second appearance came in San Francisco in a tumultuous game. Fans were already livid at Dave Roberts‘ decision to pull Ross Stripling after 7.1 innings of no-hit ball. The anger intensified when Chris Hatcher gave up the Dodgers’ 1-0 lead five pitches later. The Dodgers rallied to tie it and bring it to extras, where Blanton gave up a walk off homer on his second pitch.

Since then, Blanton has essentially been money. He’s allowed three runs in two different outings, both in games the Dodgers lost 5-2. Blanton has appeared in 43 games and has allowed the opposing team to score in six games. He’s inherited 14 runners, and four have scored.

Blanton has been the eighth inning guy we’ve all wanted, but his 3.47 FIP and .160 BABIP suggests a lot of luck. It’s a lot easier to be lucky for an inning than it is to be luck as a starter, so those numbers could hold up. Blanton has undoubtably been great, but it would still feel a lot better if the Dodgers had another eighth inning guy.

Honorable Mentions- Kenta Maeda, Chase Utley, Trayce Thompson

Next: Worst Offseason Move

Worst Offseason Move- Signing Scott Kazmir.

I’ve said before, there’s a difference between a “bad” move and a move that doesn’t work out. Often, the two go hand in hand, but there can definitely be good moves that just don’t work out.

Signing Kazmir seemed savvy at the time. Kazmir is a veteran and was coming off two good seasons, although he faltered down the stretch last season. The Dodgers needed pitching after losing Zack Greinke to Arizona, and Kazmir was a cheap veteran that showed he could pitch in the American League.

The NL hasn’t been as kind to him, as he has been extremely inconsistent this season. He was dealing with a thumb/wrist injury early on, but not including his first start, Kazmir hasn’t had an ERA under 4.00 all season. He’s gone six innings or more in eight of 18 starts, but has only gone more than six twice and more than seven once. He was signed to be the Dodgers’ number two starter, but he’s pitched more like a four or five.

He’s shown flashes of being a very good starter. His first start in San Diego couldn’t have gone better, he allowed one hit in six innings against the Cubs and he’s allowed fewer than two runs seven times. However, he’s been more bad than good, and the Dodgers took the risk of hoping he could produce closer to ace-levels at a fraction of the price. They didn’t pony up for Greinke or Johnny Cueto, and while those were both much more expensive and carried a lot more risk, they’ve also been great this season (Greinke’s looked much more Greinke-ish lately).

Kazmir’s only guaranteed to be around this season, but he can opt-in for two more years at $15 million/year. He’s struggled, so under normal circumstances he’d probably be a guarantee to opt-in. This offseason will be far from normal, as the pitching market is extremely bleak. Teams will be desperate for pitching, so there’s an outside chance Kazmir gets bigger offers elsewhere and opts out. That would probably be the best scenario for the Dodgers, as they have pitchers finally coming back healthy and a few pitchers ready to make the leap from the minors.

Dishonorable Mentions- Brett Anderson (but that was a qualifying offer so ehh), Yaisel Sierra

Next: Dodgers' Corey Seager Home Run Derby Recap