It is award season. White Sox Jerseys China . This past week the award winners in Major League Baseball were announced. Certainly, in most years the voters (players/writers) get it right more often than not. But this year they certainly missed on a few. Rookies of the YearAmerican League The Sporting News gave the award to two Florida-based players, Wil Myers (Rays, .293/.354/.478) and Jose Fernandez (Marlins, 12-6, 2.19 ERA with 187 strikeouts). Myers was the obvious winner in the AL. Jose Iglesias of the Red Sox and then the Tigers came in second followed by Myers teammate Chris Archer in third. The Rays were three games over .500 when Myers got to the big leagues but went 56-38 after his arrival. He only played in 88 games but his power and run production had a major impact as he added length and depth to the order. He hit .293 with 13 home runs and 53 RBI in those 88 games. I cant wait to see what he can do in a full season. Iglesias is a slick fielding but light-hitting shortstop who will continue to improve over time. He will be the answer for years in Detroit after they acquired him mid-season from Boston. Archer was an effective starter and there is no doubting that but he had a number of peaks and valleys to accumulate his final numbers (9-7, 3.22 ERA). He was dominating at times but was just average at times as well. AL Rookie of the Year: Wil Myers, Tampa Bay National League Jose Fernandez at the age of 20 did some remarkable things this year. He was second in ERA to CY Young winner Clayton Kershaw (1.89 ERA). He led all rookies in most pitching categories. The Marlins (62-100) went 18-10 in his starts. All really great stuff for such a young player who gained 26 of 30 first place votes. But was he really the best in the NL? Yasiel Puig came in second in the voting with only four first place votes. He was robbed. He hit .319 and slugged 19 homers and drove in 42 runs while scoring 66 in 104 games. His .391 on-base percentage and .534 slugging percentage were the best among NL rookies. The Dodgers were 23-32 before Puigs call up to the big leagues and were mired in last place in the NL West. They went 69-38 and won the division after his contract was added to the major league roster. Puig made a huge impact. He sparked the fans, which in turn sparked his teammates. One could argue that he made baseball exciting again in LA. The Dodgers were on the verge of firing manager Don Mattingly and now he is negotiating a contract extension. Puig is a handful to manage, as he is a big personality with limited boundaries in his behaviour. But boy is he great. You can make the argument that he energized all of baseball and should be a candidate for the MVP Award. He was definitely better than Jose Fernandez and deserved to win the NL award. NL Rookie of the Year: Yasiel Puig, Los Angeles Dodgers Managers of the Year The Baseball Writers vote for the Managers of the Year. Remember the votes are submitted before the playoffs begin so the award is a regular season award. The writers awarded Terry Francona in the AL for the Indians dramatic turnaround and they awarded Clint Hurdle in the NL for the Pirates first playoff berth since 1992. National LeagueIt had been an awfully long time since the Pirates last celebrated with champagne. They had shown flashes in recent years of being competitive only to fizzle out in the second half of the season. Hurdle did a remarkable job of blending youth with experience and maintaining a positive outlook even when voices of doubt might have started to creep in with his players. Clint is an inspirational story as he lives a life of recovery from alcohol addiction. He is open about it because he believes his willingness to be vulnerable cultivates trust with his players and he was proven to be right. Hurdle was the AAA manager for the Mets back when I was running the minor leagues. He wasnt as clear thinking then as he is now. We parted ways after a difficult season but rather than feel victimized Clint fought for a life of health and serenity. He found it and he now is fulfilling the promise of his abilities. I am so happy for him. I am a bit surprised the NL vote wasnt closer. Hurdle had 140 points including 25 first place votes compared to Dodgers manager Don Mattinglys second place total of 68 points and two first place votes. Mattingly did an amazing job in LA keeping things together when it looked like things were falling apart. Donnie Baseball maintained a positive demeanor even when people were calling for him to be fired. He managed his team through a tremendous amount of adversity with injuries and a change in closer. I particularly love the fact that he disciplined Yasiel Puig when his behaviour on and off the field called for it. Not every manager would sit a young stud to teach him a lesson while battling for a pennant. Mattingly didnt get the award but he will be awarded with a contract extension. NL Manager of the Year: Clint Hurdle, Pittsburgh Pirates American LeagueIn the AL, a case could be made for Indians manager Terry Francona, As manager Bob Melvin, Red Sox manager John Farrell, Rays manager Joe Maddon and Yankees manager Joe Girardi to be the manager of the year. The Yankees only won 86 games despite their lofty payroll but no team faced more injuries and adversity than the Yanks. They lost Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, Curtis Granderson, and CC Sabathia for significant amounts of time. Girardi had to blend guys who were seemingly in witness protection in recent years (Travis Hafner, Lyle Overbay, Vernon Wells and Alfonso Soriano). I have no idea with all of the injuries and underperformance how the Yankees won 86 games. Girardi may have had his best year managing. Joe Maddon always deserves recognition for getting so many young players to perform on such a consistent basis. He is a motivator and a teacher. He teaches his young guys how to win at the major league level. His support helps his players develop a sense of baseball maturity that you dont see elsewhere. The Rays always have one of the lowest payrolls as well. Just as remarkable is the quality of performance his Rays get from reclamation projects like James Loney, Davis DeJesus and Yunel Escobar. The Oakland As surprised everyone in 2012 by winning the AL West. Bob Melvin won the Manager of the Year for his teams success; as well he should have last season. Despite their success in 2012 there were some who still didnt believe in the As this year because of their youth and low payroll. But they did it again with solid pitching, timely hitting and very good defence. Melvins calmness keeps his players focused and under control. Their talent prevailed in the end. He did another worthy job in 2013. Terry Francona was back in the dugout this year in Cleveland and he showed why he is one of the best managers in the game. He led the Tribe to a 24-game improvement over their 2012 record and a playoff berth. When the season began I didnt think there was a chance this team could make the playoffs. The pitching staff just didnt stack up. Francona did a great job setting his players up to succeed and the more they won the more their confidence grew. Francona has a unique ability to be a different manager for every player: some guys need a pat on the back and some need a kick in the pants. Francona can deliver either. Francona got 116 points including 16 first place votes while edging out John Farrell, his former coaching partner in both Cleveland and Boston. Francona had 12 first place votes and 96 total points. John Farrell was the best offseason acquisition in baseball. He went back to Boston and fixed players who had struggled for a couple of seasons. He returned and helped blend a significant number of new faces on the roster. He helped heal the emotional damage from the Bobby Valentine era in 2012. The Red Sox had a number of injuries to their pitching staff in addition to weathering a major issue at the closers role. He is stable, cool, calm and collected. His personality fit perfectly. Farrell managed his pitcher extremely well and his position players thrived. He effectively managed young players and veterans while maximizing their production. The Red Sox had a 27-game turnaround from the 2012 season - the most significant jump in baseball. AL Manager of the Year: John Farrell, Boston Red Sox Cy Young AwardThe Baseball Writers Association of America voted the Dodger lefty Clayton Kershaw and Tigers ace Max Scherzer as their respective leagues Cy Young Award winners. National LeagueKershaw won in a landslide vote, getting all but one first place tally. Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals was the clear second place finisher with young Jose Fernandez of the Marlins in third. Kershaw (16-9 1.83 ERA) won the award for the second time in three years. He won the ERA title for the third consecutive year while punching out an NL-leading 232 batters. He had the best WHIP in baseball as well. Kershaw is the best pitcher in baseball and the Dodgers need to get him locked up with an extension ASAP. This award was a no-brainer. NL CY Young: Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers American LeagueMax Scherzer won 21 games, the most in baseball this year. He finished the season with a 21-3 record and 2.90 ERA. He got off to a great start by winning his first 13 decisions. He led the league in wins and WHIP and was second in strikeouts. Scherzer was ranked fifth in ERA but overall had more dominant qualitative numbers than three of the four pitchers in front of him. I am a bit surprised that Yu Darvish didnt muster more first place votes than he did. Darvish finished a distant second with only 93 points and no first place votes compared to 203 points and 28 first place votes for Scherzer. Darvish did have a slightly better ERA than Scherzer and 277 strikeouts compared to Scherzers 240. Of course Scherzer won 21 games compared to only 13 for Darvish. But Darvish lost seven games in which his team scored three or less runs including four games he lost by a 1-0 score. Scherzer (5.59 runs per game) had the third-highest run support in baseball while Darvish (4.28) was ranked 36th. After careful consideration, it is a close call with Darvish deserving the AL CY Young Award over Scherzer. AL CY Young: Yu Darvish, Texas Rangers Most Valuable PlayersThe Baseball Writers nailed the MVP Awards. Miguel Cabrera won the AL MVP for the second consecutive year and Andrew McCutchen won the award for the NL. American LeagueCabrera (385 points, 23 first place votes) beat out Mike Trout (282 points, five first place votes) for the second straight year. Trout (.323/.432/.537) slugged 27 homers, drove in 97 runs, scored 109 runs and walked 110 times while stealing 33 bases as well. He had another great season but Cabrera may have actually outdone his Triple Crown season from a year ago. He hit a career-high .348 while tying a career high in homers (44) and driving in 137 runs. He also scored 103 runs. Cabrera put up these huge numbers with very little production coming in the month of September due to a myriad of injuries. Cabrera is clearly a first ballot Hall of Famer and is making a statement that he may be the best right-handed hitter of all time. AL MVP: Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers National LeagueAndrew McCutchen won the NL MVP in a landslide. It was far more lopsided than I anticipated. McCutchen received 28 of the 30 first place votes. I am sure some part of the draw to McCutchen for the voters was the fact that the Pirates hadnt made the playoffs since 1992. McCutchen hit .317 with 21 homers and 84 RBI. He also hit .360 in the final 55 games of the season when the Pirates were in the pennant race. The last few years the Pirates faded in the second half of the season but McCutchen didnt allow that to happen this year. Paul Goldschmidt (.302, 38 HR and 125 RBI) of the Diamondbacks finished second in the balloting with Yadier Molina ending up third. I really anticipated Molina to finish a close second behind McCutchen. Molina is a manager on the field as he guided the Cardinals pitching staff and shut down the opponents running game all season long. He also hit .317 with 80 RBI, 44 doubles and 12 homers. He hit .373 with runners in scoring position. He was as clutch a player as there was in the game. His contributions helped the Cards hold off the Pirates and Reds in the division race. Unfortunately for Molina his teammate, second baseman Matt Carpenter, stole some of his votes as Carpenter finished fourth in the balloting. NL MVP: Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh Pirates It was a great year in baseball with some amazing individual performances. I cant wait for pitchers and catchers to report for spring training. Chicago White Sox Pro Shop . - Novak Djokovic beat John Isner 7-5, 6-7 (2), 6-1 on Saturday to reach the final of the BNP Paribas Open, where hell resume his longtime rivalry with Roger Federer. Stitched White Sox Jerseys . They all do actually — Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 22, 2014There is no confirmation that the date is actually happening, but that didnt stop Embiid from getting dressed up. Fresh cut..... Getting ready for dinner http://t.co/NNIfKyZQzx — Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 23, 2014 Almost 930.. https://www.cheapwhitesox.com/ . The Raptors (15-15) posted six road victories last month and have won seven of their last nine games overall. Toronto visits the Washington Wizards on Friday night.TORONTO – “There’s a bunch of things that are ailing our hockey club.” Randy Carlyle knew what was wrong with the Maple Leafs, but in a tenure that spanned 188 games and nearly three seasons, he could never do much to change it. He banged the drum loudly and repeatedly over a troubled tour in Toronto. It was about preaching, begging, coddling, kicking, doing whatever necessary to reach a group that ultimately remained, just that, out of his reach. The Leafs needed to have the puck more. The Leafs needed to play a “stiffer” defensive brand of hockey. The Leafs needed to stop relying unmercifully on their goaltenders, needed to stop relying on their powerful offence to win games. Carlyle knew all this. He said it often enough at the very least. “We need to find a way to get the most out of everybody,” said Carlyle in his old stomping grounds of Winnipeg, days before he was finally let go as Toronto’s head coach, the Leafs fourth since the second lockout. “That’s our job as a coaching staff. You don’t always have the luxury to say that you’d like this player or that player or this type of player. That’s not the way it works. You have an organization that provides you with players and our job, as we’ve said all along, is just to coach them up.” But be it because of a failed system, disconnected message, flawed personnel, or more likely, all of the above, Carlyle never got through to this group in Toronto. Dave Nonis, the Leafs general manager, said as much shortly after the firing was announced on Tuesday morning. “It’s been too much of a rollercoaster,” Nonis said in his typically stoic fashion, informing Carlyle of the decision late Monday evening. “It’s not that they’re not capable, because they are. It’s not that they haven’t done it, because they have. That’s probably the biggest reason or one of the biggest reasons for the change today.” There were times, Nonis said, that his group demonstrated what it was capable of accomplishing. He spoke as recently as this past summer and then again in training camp about the team’s success in the 48-game lockout shortened 2013 as reason to bring Carlyle back, if also firing three of his assistant coaches, oddly, in doing so. He said there were stretches again this season where the club showed itself capable, where it proved to be the “consistent team we were looking to be. But that’s not entirely true either. Even in winning times, this group showed itself as deeply flawed. They stormed through a month-long stretch with a 10-1-1 record, rarely achieving a product of quality. Rather, the Leafs scored in droves and then relied with increasing and alarming frequency on Jonathan Bernier. They’ve surrendered 40 shots or more in nearly a third of their games this season and sit just ahead of Buffalo in yielding 34.4 shots on average. They’ve been blown out more than every team but the Sabres, Oilers and Coyotes - nine times they’ve been beaten by three goals or more. In fact, the Leafs have played in more blowouts – both good and bad – than any team in the league. Twenty-two of their 40 games to date, alarmingly, have been decided by three goals or more. That’s a team that’s incapable of playing a style conducive to long-term success. His Leafs not only failed to keep the puck out of the net – despite often terrific goaltending – but failed to keep the puck at all with any consistency. They sit second to last in puck possession after finishing dead-last a year ago. Phil Kessel, Dion Phaneuf and James van Riemsdyk all notably saw their possession numbers plummet under Carlyle’s direction. van Riemsdyk, for one, held a 54 per-cent possession mark in his final season with the Flyers, tumbling to just 42 per cent this season. Beyond just the numbers was an often bizarre deployment and usage of players - a barely used, totally unproductive fourth line in recent seasons no better an example of that. This was a group – led by Carlyle – that was capable of very flawed highs and stunningly brutal lows. They ripped off wins at a blurring pace just before the Olympic break last year only to nosedive out of a playoff berth. They did the same again this year, winning 10 of 12 before losing seven of the next nine. There’s also evidence to suggest that repeated calls for improvement went unheard or if not unheard, then not absorbed by the group at large. Van Riemsdyk scoffed at the suggestion that wins early in the season weren’t always justified. “What’s a justified win?” he responded with apparent ire. Others in the room seemed to grasp something being off, that the formula undertaken in victory wasn’t necessarily best for long-term success, that repeatedly yielding 35-40 shots nightly wasn’t likely to bode well over the course of an 82-game season. Daniel Winnik called the firing a “wake-up call. It was the first time in his eight-year career that he’s had one of his head coaches fired. Winnik, though, felt Carlyle’s message was received. “[But] maybe at some points it wasn’t,” said Winnik. “There’s inconsistencies in our game, so maybe it was just inconsistent in guys receiving the message. That could be a part of it. I think when you’re as inconsistent as we’ve been it brings that to question.” “We were trying to do the right things,” added Cody Franson, “but for some reason we struggled to accomplish those details on a consisstent basis. Custom Chicago White Sox Jerseys. We share equal responsibility in that.” Nonis acknowledged the same during a meeting with players on Tuesday morning, informing them of the decision to fire Carlyle. But he also implicitly pinned much of the blame on the head coach. “It’s not that they can’t do it,” said Nonis of the roster, “it’s that our consistency hasn’t been there and it’s probably, not probably, it’s been trending downward for the last little while, where our consistency has actually been waning even more. You can chalk that up to players not listening if you’d like. But I don’t think it’s that they’re not capable, because they are. And that’s one of the reasons why we did this today.” These are not new troubles, though. These are the same failures of last season and even the late stages of a lockout year that ultimately ended in a long-awaited playoff berth. Failure to commit to defence, failure to possess the puck, failure to compete; long one of Carlyle’s repeated frustrations. All of which underscores the bizarreness and halfway measure of retaining Carlyle this past summer while firing three of his assistant coaches. “Randy deserved to come back,” Nonis said Tuesday, defending the decision, which saw Greg Cronin, Scott Gordon and Dave Farrish fired. “He had done enough to come back. We’d seen him do good things. We saw him do some good things this season. It’s not that he’s not capable. I think he’s a very capable coach. I think he’s an excellent coach. You don’t coach over 700 games without being good at it. Good coaches get let go and unfortunately today we had to do that.” But to suggest this solely being a coaching issue ignores the reality of what’s taken place in Toronto over the course of many seasons, not just a single 40-game stretch. In terms of the very big picture, these are issues that have lingered since the days of Ron Wilson and Brian Burke, issues also tied to a flawed core, one that’s signed up for the long haul no less. Kessel, van Riemsdyk, Dion Phaneuf, David Clarkson, Joffrey Lupul and Tyler Bozak are all locked up until at least 2018. And they’ve proven to be leaders of a team that’s hardly been good enough to qualify for the playoffs, let alone win a Cup. Carlyle asked the same things of Kessel that Wilson did a few years earlier, neither able to make more than a slight dent in a player whose negatives ultimately outweigh all the offensive positives. To think that will change under another head coach seems naive at this point. “You never change a leopard’s spots,” Wilson told TSN Radio in a rare interview on Tuesday. “I think you paint over some of those spots, but they’ll eventually shine through the paint and that’s just too bad.” Team president Brendan Shanahan will get a chance to see how Kessel and that core responds under new leadership – Peter Horachek and Steve Spott will lead the bench together for an unspecified amount of time – but it can’t be long before restructuring of that core takes place. There’s just too much evidence to suggest that it won’t work, at least for the ultimate prize of a Stanley Cup. This core has shown itself capable of fringe playoff status and barely even that. “And we know that,” Lupul said last week of the core’s lacking success, “whether it’s me or Bozie or Phil or Dion or Naz or Clarkie, we’ve got to be better and we’ve got to show ourselves and coaches and management that this team is growing and there’s been times we have and times we haven’t.” Franson – an impending free agent who may or may not be part of that core in the future – said more “accountability” was needed in the room. “We as a group have to hold ourselves more accountable for what’s been going on,” he said. “We know within our room that we’re as at fault as anybody else.” Dissecting and then resolving that core could prove far more challenging than the simpler task of firing the coach. “The coach is easy to let go,” said Nonis. “That’s the easy change to make.” Untangling a web ultimately created by Nonis is really the grander challenge Shanahan faces in remaking the Leafs. What to do with Kessel and Phaneuf, who are under contract to 2021 and beyond? Where to turn to with the likes of Bozak and Clarkson? What pieces of the roster are worth salvaging and which pieces are worth spinning off for the betterment of the future? And given the size and length of certain contracts, which players are even capable of being shipped off if that’s deemed the appropriate step? These are the tougher decisions Shanahan faces. His two biggest decisions to date as the leader of the Leafs have been to retain Carlyle and then fire him nearly seven months later. His next big choice, beyond the roster, is hiring a full-time replacement for the man he retained briefly and then fired. Players were surprised to learn that Carlyle was being brought back in the summer months while his lead assistant, Farrish, was being fired. They were taken aback again Tuesday morning when they learned of Carlyle’s fate. “You hear it from the media all before the season and stuff and in-season that Randy’s on the hot seat and then it finally happens and you’re like, ‘Crap’,” said Winnik. “And it’s not like we’re a bad hockey team or we’re at the bottom of the standings or anything, we’re right in the hunt of the playoffs, I think that’s where it’s surprising.” ' ' '