With the second half of the baseball season kicking off today, here are the players in the AL who were the pre-All-Star Break leaders in the three major awards.  This also happens to be how I voted in the on-going blogger voting being run by Rotojunkie.  Expect the overall results to be up by Friday.

AL CY Young:
1. Justin Duchscherer, Oakland A's
2. Cliff Lee, Cleveland Indians
3. Roy Halladay, Toronto Blue Jays

There is no way I see Duchscherer having a second half to match his first, but, until then, he deserves the 1st place vote.  My personal favorite to win it at season's end is Roy Halladay.  To do so he will have to continue winning and lapping the field in innings pitched and complete games.

AL MVP:
1. Ian Kinsler, Texas Rangers
2. Josh Hamilton, Texas Rangers
3. J.D. Drew, Boston Red Sox

I made Ian Kinsler the MVP because he is sparking the shockingly strong Texas offense.  While one can argue Josh Hamilton is the MVP, Kinsler's across the board offensive production gets the nod.

AL ROY:
1. Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays
2. Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston Red Sox
3. Nick Blackburn, Minnesota Twins

Unless Joba Chamberlain goes on to post an 8-1 record in the second half, the Al ROY is Evan Longoria's to lose.  With an .861 OPS and well-regarded defense (#1 amongst AL 3B in fielding percentage), Longoria is looking in his rearview mirror to see any other competitors.

Rotojunkie has taken over the dynamic feature started by Baseball Happenings that draws on the collective knowledge of the blogging community to provide intelligence on which players are currently considered the leading contenders for the big three baseball awards - MVP, Cy Young and ROY - for the American and National leagues.  This week's AL voting should be available later today. 

AL Cy Young:
1.  Roy Halladay, Toronto Blue Jays
2.  Cliff Lee, Cleveland Indians
3.  Joe Saunders, Los Angeles Angels

My voting remains the same as last time, but I have Justin Duchscherer in the picture.  What holds him back is he has not pitched as many innings as any of the top three - the 21 inning gap behind Saunders is the smallest one.  John Danks of the 1st place White Sox has a great ERA but five Wins is more than a stretch to get in the picture.

AL MVP:
1.  Josh Hamilton, Texas Rangers
2.  J.D. Drew, Boston Red Sox
3.  Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees

Hamilton holds on to the top spot simply because he has more ABs than either Drew or Rodriguez, two players on better teams.  With injuries beginning to creep in for Hamilton, I don't expect him to occupy the top spot much longer.  Anyone else notice that ARod is just three HRs behind the AL lead and has eleven SBs to go with his .405 OBP?

AL ROY:
1.  Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays
2.  Joba Chamberlain, New York Yankees
3.  Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston Red Sox

With Jacoby Ellsbury's plummetting OBP (.344), he no longer grabs the top spot.  Evan Longoria has an OBP just three points lower and an OPS more than 100 points higher.  As long as Joba Chamberlain continue to look like a #1 starter, Ellsbury's hold on the 2nd spot will not last much longer either.

Rotojunkie  has taken over the dynamic feature started by Baseball Happenings that draws on the collective knowledge of the blogging community to provide intelligence on which players are currently considered the leading contenders for the big three baseball awards - MVP, Cy Young and ROY - for the American and National leagues.  This week's AL voting should be available later today. 

Here is the way I voted.  My biases for voting in the Cy Young and MVP awards lean towards those hitters and pitchers playing on contending teams.  ROY determination is not tied are strongly to his team's record, but good rookies on expected paly-off contenders will get additional consideration.

AL Cy Young:
1.  Roy Halladay, Toronto Blue Jays
2.  Cliff Lee, Cleveland Indians
3.  Joe Saunders, Los Angeles Angels

Despite having two fewer wins and a higher ERA, Roy Halladay gets my 1st place vote over Cliff Lee.  Halladay has thrown 15 more innings (107.7 vs 92.7) and has a better K/BB ratio (6.6 vs 5.4).  With Lee returning back to Earth, he only has wins to prevent others from seeing he is no longer the front-runner for the award.

AL MVP:
1.  Josh Hamilton, Texas Rangers
2.  J.D. Drew, Boston Red Sox
3.  Milton Bradley, Texas Rangers

Josh Hamilton remains at the top of the AL MVP voting, but he is being challenged by teammate Milton Bradley, who current lead the AL in OBP (.451) and OPS (1.081).  Making a surprise leap into the top three is Boston Red Sox RF J.D. Drew.  With David Ortiz out of action, Drew has stepped-up in June with 7 HRs and a .447 AVG.  On the season, he is second in OBP and OPS to Milton Bradley.  He gets the 2nd place vote thanks the his team being in first and Bradley getting competition from Josh hamilton.

AL ROY:
1.  Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston Red Sox
2.  David Murphy, Texas Rangers
3.  Joba Chamberlain, New York Yankees

Anyone notice the New York Yankees have four rookie pitchers on their staff not including Ian Kennedy?  Maybe this plan of fiscal discipline will pay-off - assuming all of them last past the July 31st trading deadline.  I can see a couple of these rookies, like Jose veras and Russ Ohlendorf, finding their way the the Seattle Mariners for LHP Jarrod Washburn or Miguel Batista.

Rotojunkie  has taken over the dynamic feature started by Baseball Happenings that draws on the collective knowledge of the blogging community to provide intelligence on which players are currently considered the leading contenders for the big three baseball awards - MVP, Cy Young and ROY - for the American and National leagues.  This week's AL voting should be available later today. 

Here is the way I voted.  My biases for voting in the Cy Young and MVP awards lean towards those hitters and pitchers playing on contending teams.  ROY determination is not tied are strongly to his team's record, but good rookies on expected paly-off contenders will get additional consideration.

AL Cy Young:
1.  Cliff Lee, Cleveland Indians
2.  Ervin Santana, Los Angeles Angels
3.  Joe Saunders, Los Angeles Angels

AL MVP:
1.  Josh Hamilton, Texas Rangers
2.  Carlos Quentin, Chicago White Sox
3.  Kevin Youkilis, Boston Red Sox

AL ROY:
1.  Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston Red Sox
2.  Nick Blackburn, Minnesota Twins
3.  Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays

How is it the team with the best record in the American League, The Tampa Bay Rays, only gets one player considered for one of the top three awards, and that only because the rookie class behind Red Sox CF Jacoby Ellsbury is so weak?  I can't imagine the actual voters not "forcing" a Rays into the Top 3 in all the awards if the Rays make the play-offs.  The team will be the talk of the 2008 season, and the deisre to recognize it in the CY Young, MVP and Rookie-of-the-Year awards will be too strong to resist.

FOR ROY, Logoria is an easy choice to appear on the baseball writer's ballots.  My best guess would by CF B.J. Upton for MVP on the strength of his .400+ OBP and SBs total.  For Cy Young, James Shields would get the vote right now, but Scott Kazmir could get it if he remains in the rotation for the rest of the season.  He has already surpassed Shields in Wins for the season and is just 20 Ks behind him with 43.2 fewer innings pitched.

There has certainly been an outage of offense in the American League this season. The questions of why and for how long remain unanswered. Here is a list of the Top 3 players by position using Baseball Prospectus' VORP statistic. Note how much difference there is just between the top player and the third-best one. This would lead me to believe a Stars & Scrubs versus a balance approach may be the best fantasy strategy. Agree?

Also, note how poorly the OF VORP leaders due relative to the other position players. The top VORP is lower. This supports the contention that the OF is "shallow" relative to the other positions. However, the drop-off is not as dramatic. There could be more depth in the OF relative to other positions. This supports a strategy that focuses on acquiring the top positions player at the expense of OFs. Agree?

Finally, look at the top three DHs. This helps epxlain the drop in AL production this season. That extra hitter has struggled mightily. I bet the answer to this question goes a ways to explaining the production outage in the AL.

Baseball Happenings enters its 7th week of polling the blogging community to provide intelligence on which players are currently considered the leading contenders for the big three baseball awards - MVP, Cy Young and ROY - for the American and National leagues.  This week's results should be available later today . 

Here is the way I voted.  My biases for voting in the Cy Young and MVP awards lean towards those hitters and pitchers playing on contending teams.  ROY determination is not tied are strongly to his team's record, but good rookies on expected paly-off contenders will get additional consideration.

AL Cy Young:
1.  Cliff Lee, Cleveland Indians
2.  Daisuke Matzusaka, Boston Red Sox
3.  Joe Saunders, Los Angeles Angels

Although Lee was bombed on Sunday, the 2008 season is far enough along that his statistics didn't plummet.  Anothe rone or two like that, and he could very well be back with the pack. I struggled with the order of the next two because Daisuke doesn't pitch enough innings and Saunders doesn't strikout anyone nor does he have a killer GB/FB rate.  Ultimately, I went with the 7-o pitcher.

AL MVP:
1.  Carlos Quentin, Chicago White Sox
2.  Josh Hamilton, Texas Rangers
3.  Kevin Youkilis, Boston Red Sox

This was a close call given Hamilton's league-leading RBi total, but, ultimately, Quentin has been the best player on the 1st place team.  Kevin Youkilis came in 3rd, but I suspect he will suffer from the presence of Manny Ramirez and the resurgent David Ortiz.

AL ROY:
1.  Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston Red Sox
2.  Greg Smith, Oakland Athletics
3.  Nick Blackburn, Minnesota Twins

This is the same order as last time.  All three have worsened since last time, but none are doing as poorly as hyped (over?) Tampa Bay Ray Evan Longoria. A 231/316/402 is a far cry from what was expected.  New York Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain could have made the list, but he in the midst of allowing runs in enough appearances to make his ROY candicacy appear to be an illusion of the New York media.

Jayson Werth of the Philladelphia Phillies hit three home runs and drove-in 8 in his team's 10-3 dismantling of the Toronto Blue Jays.  Many fantasy players will look to take him from the free agent pool, and I think that is a good move.  Note his splits, though.  He absolutely crushes right-handed pitching to the tune of  321/390/717 with six of his nine HRs.  Against righties, he is not as great -   262/329/462, but it is better than David Ortiz has fared this season -  252/348/433.

Cincinnati Reds' rookie Johnny Cueto logged a quality start agains the Cleveland Indians and struck out seven.  The red flag, though, was the three home runs allowed.  Despite 53 strikeouts in 51.2 innings, he has given up 12 longballs.  At that rate, Cueto has the most value to fantasy players as a chip for 2009.

Florida Marlins' 2B Dan Uggla went 3-3 and hit his 13th HR.  For the season, he has 30 RBI and a slash stat line of 313/397/680.  He is still on pace to strike out 160+ times,  but the increase in walks should mitigate the expected drop in AVG.  Expect Uggla to set career-highs in HR (31), RBI (90) and BB (68).  If the Rule V draftee was still with his original organization (Arizona), do you think he'd have ended up in Oakland as part of the Danny haren trade or as a free agent minor leaguer?

Texas Rangers CF Josh Hamilton went 5-5 with two HRs and his 45th, 46th, 47th, 48th and 49th RBIs of the season.  At .314/367/599, he has clearly been the top hitter in the American League this season.  With his life story, he might be able to snatch the AL MVP despite playing for a bad team.

Thank God for interleague play!  Now Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre can play all four of his outfielders by batting one at DH.  Last night, Andruw Jones filled the role and went 0-4.  The good news was he only struck out once.  The bad news was Torre could have used the DH to rest Russell Martin while keeping his bat in the line-up.  Instead, Torre played him at 3B.