In many years there are no exciting award races. The MVP will be clear cut in both leagues. The Cy Young awards will be preordained. The Rookie of the Year winners will be decided by the time the Opening Day rosters are announced. Gladly 2013 is not one of those years. I would venture to say that none of the major awards have a guy whom should clearly take home the crown. Maybe you could make a case Kershaw has separated himself, but Harvey is right on his tail. Perhaps the voters will love Cabrera’s run at a second triple crown, but Trout is probably going to defeat him in WAR again. There are many great races, but my personal favorite this year is for the AL Cy Young, if only because there are so many fantastic choices. There is a good chance that many voters will be lazy, and just vote for Max Scherzer because of his record, but they will be doing themselves a disservice. This race deserves an advanced breakdown.

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Dodgers 6, @Marlins 4 — Yasiel Puig showed up late, so he didn’t wait for elevator, but took the stairs instead. Bye-bye, losing “streak.”

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There has been a lot of excitement the past couple days over one of the most hyped and promising prospects in baseball being called up to the Majors. For those of you haven’t heard Boston Red Sox 20 year old shortstop Xander Bogaerts is making his MLB debut tonight. While perusing baseball reference yesterday I noticed that there had never been a Xander, nor a Bogaerts in history. This led me to ask who some other players of note there have been, where both their first and last names were specific to them in the annals of Major League history. Many great people chimed in with helpful answers, notably Andy on this very site, and Bill Parker, who does wonderful work at the Platoon Advantage. I have compiled my own personal list of the All-Time team of players who fit this criteria. Somethings to note before we begin, to qualify a players birth name must be unique, no nicknames. Also the player had to play a sizable portion of their career at said position, not just a couple of appearances. Lastly this list is not the greatest in terms of WAR, or any other measure, it is my list. Feel free to leave yours in the comments. Who knows, maybe Xander Bogaerts himself will earn a spot someday.

The Infield:
Catcher- Harry “Muddy” Ruel- Compiled a career OBP of .365
First Base- Ferris Fain- Farris was a 2 time batting champ with the Philadelphia Athletics
Second Base- Placido Polanco- Polanco has over 1000 career runs scored.
Third Base- Harmon Killebrew- 11th all-time in homeruns.
Shortstop- Nomar Garciaparra- 882 OPS, the 2nd best among shortstops with 1000 games.
The Outfield:
Left Field- Yoenis Cespedes- Career 121 OPS+
Center Field- Tristram “Tris” Speaker-His 792 doubles are the most all-time
Right Field- Vada Pinson- One of only 22 players ever with 250 steals and 250 homeruns.
The Pitchers:
Number 1 Starter- Sanford “Sandy” Koufax-Was the youngest man ever inducted into HOF
Number 2 Starter- Rik “Bert” Blyleven- 5th most strikeouts ever.
Number 3 Starter- Orel Hershiser- MLB record 59 inning scoreless streak
Number 4 Starter- Carsten “CC” Sabathia- Tied for the 2nd in Pitchers WAR since 2000
Number 5 Starter- Sefat “Yu” Darvish- Has the highest career K% of any starter ever.
Closer: Ugueth Urbina- Had 9 straight seasons with more than a K an inning

As many of you may have noticed there has been a wealth of elite pitching talent in the league this year. Many wonderful starters are having seasons that will go down as historic. Only 3 qualified pitchers have had a higher strikeout per 9 higher than Yu Darvish is currently having this year(11.96). Max Scherzer has a sparkling 18-1 record. Felix is building upon his Hall of Fame career, with personal bests in strikeout percentage and walk percentage. Clayton Kershaw’s 1.80 ERA is the lowest by any starting pitcher since Pedro Martinez in 2000. Jose Fernandez is dominating like no pitcher his age since Doc Gooden’s heyday. Many others, including Chris Sale, Matt Harvey, Hiroki Kuroda, and Anibal Sanchez are having marvelous seasons. All together 8 qualified starters have an ERA+ of at least 150, tied for the 4th most of any season in history. In Arizona there is a man on that list that I am not sure many people are talking about, Patrick Corbin.

As I write this I am watching the Diamondbacks celebrating a victory over one of the best offenses in baseball, the Cincinnati Reds. Patrick Corbin started this game, and ended up with a complete game, allowing 2 runs with 10 strikeouts and no walks. It is only the 3rd time in the past 3 calender years that a pitcher has had double digit K’s against Cincinnati and not allowed a walk, Zack Greinke and Chris Carpenter being the other two. That is pretty good company to be in. This outing lowered his full season ERA to 2.45, all the while pitching his home games in the bandbox that is Chase Field. He has not been getting extremely lucky either. His FIP is now 3.08, the 7th lowest number in the National League. His walk rate has been kept at a well below average 2.19 per nine, while he is only allowing 0.61 home runs per 9.

Corbin has specialized in attacking the zone this year. He has thrown a first pitch strike to 70% of the batters he has faced this year, the highest percentage in the National League. This has allowed him to reduce the number of pitches he throws in an an-bat. He currently only uses 3.60 pitches per plate appearances, placing him 13th in baseball. Since he has been so efficient, as well as productive, he has been able to complete 6 innings in all but 1 of his 25 starts this year. There are obvious flaws in his game that many will say keep from being anything more than an above average starter. He doesn’t strikeout a large number of batters, only 7.83 per 9 this year. Also he is not among the elite at keeping the ball on the ground, at 46.7% compared to a league average of 44.6%. However, there is no denying that he has been able to assuage these flaws, and been among the most valuable pitchers baseball in 2013. At only 23 years old he is well ahead of the curve. As long as he keeps getting ahead of batters, and keeps throwing a two-seamer that PITCHf/x says has been the most valuable in baseball, then he will be a very good pitcher for a very long time.

The players in this quiz are the only outfielders with a particular season accomplishment since 1961. What is this unusual feat?

Hint #1: none of these players accomplished this feat more than once.

Congratulations to bstar! He correctly identified these players as the only outfielders since 1961 with both 25 WAR Batting Runs and 25 WAR Fielding Runs (using B-R WAR). In fact, these are the only outfielders since 1901 to meet both criteria.

The Brewers’ Carlos Gomez has a chance to join this group. He’s already at 27 WAR Fielding Runs and is sitting on 17 WAR Batting Runs, so he’ll need to get healthy and get really hot with the bat the rest of the way. Even if he doesn’t make this group, he stands an even better chance at joining even more exclusive company – becoming just the 8th player at any position with a season since 1901 of 8 WAR from fewer than 25 WAR batting runs (maybe I should have made that the quiz). The 25/25 seasons for our quiz players, and the exclusive group Gomez seems destined to join are after the jump.

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A season ago Detroit Tigers’ slugger Miguel Cabrera became the first player in 45 years to lead his league in batting average, home runs, and RBI, which earned him a historic Triple Crown. As an encore, the Tigers’ 3rd baseman decided he was going to be even better. With yet another multi-hit, multi-RBI game on Sunday, the Cabrera joined Jimmie Foxx and Babe Ruth as the only players in major league history with at least 120 RBIs, 40 home runs and a .350 average in their first 116 games of a season. That’s some pretty exclusive company that Cabrera’s rubbing elbows with and barring an absolutely massive upset, his efforts should lead to a 2nd straight MVP award.

But how did we get to this point? Even dating back to his days as a Florida Marlin, it’s fairly obvious that the potential for greatness was always there, so what unlocked it? How was Miguel Cabrera able to go from perennial All-Star to best hitter alive?

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@Orioles 7, Rockies 2 — Adam Jones and Chris Davis had big days, with a homer and a double each, and Scott Feldman bested Jhoulys Chacin, as Baltimore took the rubber game and kept pace with both wild-card leaders.

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Dodgers 5, @Phillies 0 — Ho-hum. Clayton Kershaw cut his ERA to 1.80 with eight 3-hit innings, and he chipped in an RBI double, as the Dodgers won again, of course. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

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A quickie version of Thursday’s action from your substitute reporter. The real thing will return soon.

The 3-way NL Central race heated up with the Cardinals and Reds both gaining ground on the front-running Pirates, who saw their lead shrink to just two games. The AL East and AL West races also tightened with the closest pursuers in each division both gaining ground on the front-runners. In the AL Central, Detroit hosted Kansas City to begin a 5-game set that could be a make-or-break series for the upstart Royals and tell us if they really are for real.

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Alfonso Soriano has been in the news this week with his stellar play in his return to pinstripes. Appropriate then that he is included in this list of recent power hitters.

Really simple quiz. What is the career accomplishment shared by only these players over the past 25 seasons (since 1989)? Note for players active before 1989 that, to be included in this list, they must have achieved this career accomplishment only within the the 1989 to 2013 period.