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The Season 43 World Series is in the books, and it's the AL #2 seed, Florida, who claims the crown for the first time in 27 seasons! Florida took on a tough Vancouver team in the ALDS, squeaking out a win in 5 games. They went on to defeat top seeded Cleveland in 6 in the ALCS and ended up out-battling the NL's top seed, Omaha, in 5 games to claim the Season 43 title. Florida posted a 2.94 team ERA en route to their first World Series trophy since Season 16, with both the starters and bullpen performing fairly well. The offense didn't set the world on fire, as the team average was .237 for the playoffs, but came through with some timely power bursts, slugging 23 home runs in 16 games. Congrats to wihargo on Cobb championship #2, and to Omaha as well on a great season, who looks to be back in the title picture now. Will be interesting to see what happens next season with so many solid teams! In the meantime, here's a recap of the Season 43 major award winners!
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
American League - Jerry Johnson, Cleveland - .327 AVG 22 HR 72 RBI 53 SB
The 31 year-old on-base machine and baserunning guru edged out his teammate by one vote to take home his 2nd MVP trophy, also having won in Season 40. He also made his 6th All-Star team and won his 6th Silver Slugger award in Season 43. Although he didn't have out-of-this-world power numbers, he did everything else at such a high level, it allowed voters to look past it and award his tremendous efforts.
National League - Mark Jang, Chicago - .301 AVG 48 HR 121 RBI 20 SB
The Season 42 NL Rookie of the Year followed that feat up by taking home the NL MVP in his sophomore campaign. The 22 year-old is off to an amazing start to his career, also having earned his 1st Silver Slugger award in Season 43. Jang can just about do it all, run the bases, is an excellent fielder, has elite power, it will be interesting to see where he can go from here.
CY YOUNG AWARD
American League - Harry Galvis, Cleveland - 24-8 2.58 ERA 224 K
The fact that Galvis has earned his 2nd Cy Young Award at age 24, probably doesn't even properly summarize his talent. The 3-time All-Star continued his dominance for the AL's top regular season team, Cleveland, posting an outstanding line once again. He previous won the Cy Young in Season 41, and could have last season too, so we could have been talking about an epic 3-in-a-row run here. Something tells us this won't be the last Cy Young for this most impressive lefty.
National League - C.C. Gryboski, Omaha - 22-5 3.02 ERA 204 K
The NL Cy Young also goes to that league's best regular season team, as the 35 year-old hard-throwing righty from Omaha took home his 2nd Cy Young Award, previously having won in Season 36. Although he has had some great seasons since, this is his first time posting more than 15 wins since his initial Cy Young campaign, which was enough to propel him slightly ahead of his competition. He also made his 5th All-Star team in Season 43.
That does it for Season 43 - see you back soon for Season 44 after a hopefully quick rollover!
