Five Blue Jays are nominated for Silver Slugger awards
2 years ago
The Toronto Blue Jays have five Silver Slugger nominees, Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Bo Bichette, Marcus Semien, Teoscar Hernandez, and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. There are two locks, two maybes and one unlikely player. Let’s run through their stats.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr:
Vlad finished the season with a slash line of .311/.401/1.002 and added 48 homers and 111 RBIs. I don’t need to tell you how good he was, just that he’ll likely win it. He is up against Yuli Gurriel and Matt Olson. They are great players, but the aren’t Vlad Jr.
Marcus Semien:
Another lock for the Silver Slugger, Marcus Semien had the best season for a second baseman ever. In fact, it was one of the best seasons from a middle infielder in the history of the MLB. I wrote about this here…
A brief recap: Semien posted a .265/.344/.873 slash line with 45 home runs, the most ever for a second baseman. Without a doubt in my mind, Marcus Semien is the Silver Slugger winner for second base as Jose3 Altuve, DJ LeMahieu and Jorge Polanco don’t stand a chance.
Also, expect him to get nominated for a gold glove award as well.
Teoscar Hernandez:
Remember when we thought Teoscar Hernandez wouldn’t reach his full potential? Boy, were we ever wrong. A Silver Slugger nomination is nothing new for the 29-year-old right fielder, in fact, he won it last season.
There were some questions about whether or not he could follow up this season. Those questions faded as he posted a .296/.346/.870 with 32 home runs. Teoscar is still improving as well, as his defense has drastically increased, he had the lowest K% in his career and the highest fWAR at 3.9. BABIP be damned, Teoscar hits the ball so hard that his high BABIP makes complete sense.
Cedric Mullins, Aaron Judge, Kyle Tucker, Mitch Haniger, Hunter Renfroe and Randy Arozarena are all great players and there’s no guarantee that TeoscarHernandez wins the Silver Slugger, but my lord do the Jays have the closest thing to a Jose Bautista replica.
Lourdes Gurriel:
I didn’t include Gurriel in the list of outfielders for dramatic effect? Did it work?
Gurriel Jr had a .268/.315/.785 slash line with 21 home runs. He struggled to start the season, but was a huge reason why the Jays had a chance for the postseason as he turned it on in September. Will Gurriel Jr win the Silver Slugger? No. Do I like extremely hot Gurriel where he can carry a team on his back? You’re damn right.
Bo Bichette:
Upon looking at Carlos Correa’s offensive stats, I changed my mind. Originally, I thought the Silver Slugger award was 100% Correa’s, but while Correra is a lock to win the shortstop Gold Glove, he has lesser offensive stats than Bichette. While it’ll still be close, I do believe Correra will win, it’s a lot closer than I originally thought.
Bo Bichette had a slash line of .298/.343/.828 was incredibly productive. This isn’t to mention that he also had 29 home runs and a wRC+ of 122. Carlos Correra had a .297/.395/.850 slash line with 26 homers and a wRC+ of 136.
Thankfully, we aren’t talking about defense. The other two nominees are Xander Bogaerts and Tim Anderson.
Other notable names:
Future Blue Jays Jose Ramirez was also nominated for the AL 3B Silver Slugger. There is a good chance that he’ll win that easily as he’s up against Rafael Devers and Kyle Seager.
Interestingly, German Marquez, a target which I believe the Jays should look at in the off-season, is nominated for the Pitching Silver Slugger. It’s meaningless, but still pretty cool.
As always, follow me on Twitter @Brennan_L_D.
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