The baseball season is just past the halfway point, but it's never too early to consider potential award winners. Here is a look at the best of the best in the National League for the first 3½ months of the season:
Most Valuable Player
1. Joey Votto, Cincinnati: Veteran third baseman Scott Rolen probably is the Reds' leader because of his previous accomplishments and the aggressive manner in which he plays the game (see headfirst slide in All-Star Game), but Votto has been in Albert Pujols country, i.e., potential Triple Crown territory.
2. Ubaldo Jimenez, Colorado: Normally, you wouldn't list a starting pitcher this high, but 15-1 in the first half is too gaudy to overlook. A starting pitcher doesn't usually account for 30 percent of his team's victories. If the Rockies would win, say, the 94 games or so it would to take to capture their division, that would translate into 28 wins for Jimenez. No National Leaguer has won that many games since late Hall of Famer Robin Roberts won 28 for Philadelphia in 1952.
3. Albert Pujols, Cardinals: Pujols should never be lower than third in any evaluation of MVPs, and he rarely is. He is in the hunt for two parts of the Triple Crown. His .313 average is some 20 points below his norm, but he's rising.
Cy Young
1. Jimenez: No NL pitcher has won both awards since the Cardinals' Bob Gibson in 1968. Then they lowered the mound five inches.
2. Josh Johnson, Florida: Over a recent stretch, Johnson surrendered one or no runs in eight straight starts, the first time that had been done since Gibson in 1968, and then, after allowing two runs in a game, Johnson had two more games of one and none.
3. Adam Wainwright, Cardinals: No way Wainwright misses winning 20 this year unless he gets hurt; 20 wins last year probably would have given him the Cy instead of San Francisco's Tim Lincecum.
Rookie of the Year
1. Jaime Garcia, Cardinals: He leads all NL rookies in wins, ERA and opponents' batting average against. He was third overall in ERA before the weekend.
2. Jason Heyward, Atlanta: If he raises his average from .251, he could overtake Garcia. Heyward already is on pace for 20 homers and 85 RBIs.
3. Gaby Sanchez, Florida: Little-known outside of Florida and perhaps not much within the state, Sanchez has been a solid .300 hitter with 15- to 18-homer potential. If San Francisco's Buster Posey, who hit .355 with seven homers after his call-up a month into the season, continues anywhere near that pace, there will be an adjustment.
Manager of the Year
1. Bud Black, San Diego: The preseason prognosticators chose to ignore the Padres' strong finish last year. But the team has played just as well this year, taking the lead in the most competitive division in the league despite an offense that ranks 14th in batting average and 14th in homers.
2. Dusty Baker, Cincinnati: No one picked the Reds either, but Baker has helped marshal a mix of veterans and youngsters who now believe they can win.
3. Bobby Cox, Atlanta: When the Braves lost four straight games here in late April, it didn't look as if Cox would be having any fun this season in his last year on the job for the Braves. He's won 14 division titles with the Braves and one with Toronto, but this may be one of his best managing jobs yet.
NL Comeback Player
How about all Braves?
1. Tim Hudson, Atlanta: Didn't pitch until September last year after elbow surgery and then made All-Star team this year.
2. Billy Wagner, Atlanta: Limited to 15 innings last year as he recovered from elbow surgery. Had 20 saves by the All-Star break this year.
3. Troy Glaus, Atlanta: He had five hits last year with the Cardinals. Though his average slipped into the .250s at the All-Star break, Glaus is on target for 25 homers and 100 RBIs, just about what he did here in 2008.
NEWS ITEM: In "the year of the pitcher," the earned-run averages in the National and American leagues at the All-Star break, 4.10 and 4.21, respectively, were lower in the first half of the season than they had been in 18 years.
HUMMEL'S TAKE: While some would say this is the best pitching since 1968, after which the mound was lowered five inches, it is more plausible to say this is the best young pitching in a very, very long time — perhaps decades.
Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre, one of those who go back to 1968 as the watershed year to offer as a comparison to this one, said, "There may have been a year here and there (that was better) ... but not the accumulation of the arms and the youth."
Among the National League starters, for instance, there are Jimenez, Johnson, Matt Cain, Wainwright, Lincecum, Kershaw, Garcia, Mat Latos and now Stephen Strasburg. All are 28 years old or younger.
MLB Network broadcaster Jim Kaat, a former Cardinal who won 283 games in the majors, mostly with Minnesota, while pitching in four decades, says, "I'm looking for a hidden answer. Like, is it a carryover from the steroid era? Or is the strike zone bigger?
"I just think there are lot of good, young pitchers. That's what stands out this year."
For now, let's take the comparisons back to 1992 when the NL's ERA was 3.50 and the AL's was 3.94, the last time both leagues were under 4.00.
NEWS ITEM: George Steinbrenner, an icon as owner of the New York Yankees, died last week at 80 and drew tributes from many sides of baseball.
HUMMEL'S TAKE: One of those honoring Steinbrenner was about-to-be-inducted Hall of Famer Whitey Herzog, who managed the Cardinals and Kansas City Royals to many championships and said he would have liked to have worked for Steinbrenner.
"I admired him because he wanted to win," said Herzog. "I wish I would have gotten a chance to manage for him.
"Every time we would win a championship in Kansas City or St. Louis, he would send me a telegram and it said, 'You're a genius.' I still have four of those telegrams. (Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said he also had received several personal notes from Steinbrenner.)
"The one I got the most kick out of," said Herzog, "was one that said, 'How in the world can you win a pennant with Joe (Jose) Oquendo playing right field and I can't win one with Dave Winfield in right field?' "
NEWS ITEM: Torre, the oldest manager in the game, turns 70 on Sunday. Many family members have come in for the occasion, including his two sisters, one of whom actually is a Sister.
HUMMEL'S TAKE: It seems that every 20 years, Torre finds himself tied to St. Louis on his birthday. He played for the Cardinals in 1970 and much of his Most Valuable Player season of 1971 with the Cardinals came when Torre was playing as a 30-year-old. Shortly after his 50th birthday in 1990, Torre was hired by general manager Dal Maxvill to manage the Cardinals. And now here he is at 70, not knowing whether he will manage next season with the Dodgers, but knowing that he has been very lucky.
The number 70 has no meaning for him because, he said, "After you're diagnosed with (prostate) cancer, age has very little significance." He is 11 years removed from his cancer.
NEWS ITEM: Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda of the Dodgers spoke at a St. Louis Browns luncheon here Friday, attended by several ex-Brownies.
HUMMEL'S TAKE: Lasorda, originally a Brooklyn Dodgers farmhand, recalled how he was almost in the Browns' rotation and, in fact, trained with them in San Bernadino, Calif., in 1953, the Browns' last season.
"I'd had a good spring," said Lasorda, "and we're on the train going from San Bernadino to Phoenix and I go to the dining car and (coaches) Harry Brecheen and Joe Schultz tell me I'm going to be one of the starters. I'm thinking, 'That's great.' We get off the train in Phoenix and then there's (owner) Bill Veeck waiting for us. He hadn't been with us all spring. I put my uniform on and the phone rings and (manager) Marty Marion wants me to come up to his room.
"When I got there, Bill Veeck was there. He said, 'I feel bad, Tommy.' I bought you for $50,000. ... but I can't pay the Dodgers."
So Lasorda went back to the Dodgers' system and, though still a promising lefthander, never won a game for the Dodgers in the big leagues (he was 0-4 for Kansas City in 1956).
