Dodgers Have Three Players up for MLB Awards
The MLB announced their regular season award finalist for the MVP, Cy Young, Manager of the Year, and Rookie of the Year for the 2017 regular season. The Dodgers are well represented with a candidate in three of the four awards.
To the surprise of no one, Dodgers‘ rookie Cody Bellinger was the first announced as a finalist for the 2017 Jackie Robinson Rookie of the Year award. Bellinger is going up against Josh Bell of the Pirates and Paul DeJon of the Cardinals.
There really isn’t much of a discussion here as Bellinger is the clear runaway favorite to bring home to award. This would be the second consecutive season that the Dodgers have the NL Rookie of the Year. Bellinger looks to become the 18th Dodger to win the ROY award.
Another non-surprise is Dave Roberts being a finalist for the NL Manager of the Year award for the second consecutive season. Roberts’ won the award last year in his first year as a manager and led the Dodgers to an MLB best 104 in the regular season.
Roberts is going up against fellow NL West rivals, Torey Lovullo of Arizona, and Bud Black of Colorado. Roberts could be in prime position to repeat as MOY, but the big leap both of these clubs made to make the postseason could give them the nod over Doc. Roberts looks to become the 2nd Dodger manager to win MOY award and would be the first to do so in consecutive seasons.
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The final Dodger who is a finalist for an award is Clayton Kershaw. In what was a bit of a surprise, Kershaw is a top 3 finalist for the Cy Young award and will be going up against Strasburg, and Scherzer of the Nationals.
I only say this is surprising considering Kershaw missed an extended period this season and did not rack up the number of innings and strikes these other two pitchers did. Kershaw is going for his 4th Cy Young award and ties Greg Maddux as the only pitcher with seven straight seasons to finish in the top 5 of Cy Young voting.
The only category the Dodgers do not have a representative in is MVP. The MVP finalists are Joey Votto (Reds), Giancarlo Stanton (Marlins), and Paul Goldschmidt (DBacks).
I’d be interested to see where Cody Bellinger ranked in the MVP voting as he simply turned the Dodgers’ season around after his call-up and the team had the best record in the league when he was on the field. Justin Turner had some early season consideration with his high batting average, but faltered later in the season and wasn’t at the same level as these hitters.
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We’ll see if the Dodgers can come away with more than one of these awards. We all know it would be a nice accolade for these guys after a magnificent season. These three will join Yasiel Puig and Corey Seager as Dodgers who are up for MLB awards, as it was announced that Seager and Puig are finalists for Gold Glove awards. The winners will be announced next week starting with Rookie of the Year on Monday, Nov. 13, Manager of the Year on Tuesday, Nov. 14, and Cy Young on Wednesday, Nov. 15. How many awards do you think the Dodgers will take home?