Tracking Awards: 6/4

AL MVP: Mike Trout (LAA): 16 HR, 36 RBI, .337 AVG, 10 SB, 212 wRC+. Last week: Trout.

You never like to hear about players getting injured, but having the game's best player, in the midst of a career year, go down for almost two months is especially disappointing. At this point, though, he hasn't missed enough time to justify giving the award to someone else, like Aaron Judge, so let's recap what he was doing before he got hurt. Through 47 games, Trout had 16 home runs, 14 doubles, a pair of triples, and ten stolen bases, slashing .337/.461/.742 and leading the MLB with a 212 wRC+ and 3.4 fWAR. We all wish Trout a speedy recovery, and if he keeps playing the way he has, he could conceivably still win the AL MVP at the end of the season as long as BBWAA writers don't continue their misguided trend of valuing team performance. 

NL MVP: Bryce Harper (WSH): 15 HR, 43 RBI, .328 AVG, 0 SB, 179 wRC+. Last week: Freddie Freeman.

Freddie Freeman still leads the MLB in wOBA (.488) and the NL in wRC+ (208), but unlike Trout, he has now missed enough time with his injury to justify moving the award elsewhere. Bryce Harper is very much back in his 2015 form, with his .328/.438/.655 slash line comparing well to 2015's .330/.460/.649. The heart of a lineup that also includes Ryan Zimmerman and Daniel Murphy, he is currently serving a three game suspension for *hot take alert* standing up for himself after being beaned by Giants reliever Hunter Strickland. We are extremely lucky to be able to watch Harper and Trout (once he comes back in July) compete against each other, even if they aren't in the same league. It's reminiscent of the Mantle-Mays-Snider era to me. While Bryce probably compares better to Duke Snider than to Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays at this point, comparing Trout to Mantle or Mays may not be too much of an overstatement at this point.

AL Cy Young: Dallas Keuchel (HOU): 9-0, 1.67 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, 69/18 K/BB. Last week: Keuchel.

Unlike most of the other awards here (save for AL ROY), this one is pretty clear. Dallas Keuchel has not only bounced back from a rough 2016 (4.55 ERA, 1.29 WHIP) to regain his 2015 form in which he won the AL Cy Young Award, but he's actually putting up a career year that outperforms anything he's ever done. Through eleven starts, he's unbeaten (with the help of MLB's best offense) with an MLB-leading 1.67 ERA and 0.87 WHIP, allowing just 67 baserunners over 75.2 innings. He has allowed two or fewer earned runs in ten of his eleven starts, with his only blip being an eight inning, five earned run performance against the Angels in which his manager left him in to long and he allowed three runs in the eighth. If you take out that one start, which really wasn't as bad as the stat line would suggest, he has a 1.20 ERA, a 0.84 WHIP, and a 64/16 strikeout to walk ratio over ten starts.

NL Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw (LAD): 7-2, 2.28 ERA, 0.90 WHIP, 92/11 K/BB. Last week: Kershaw.

Max Scherzer is doing his best to challenge him here, but realistically, it's tough to see baseball's best pitcher relinquishing this spot. Any time he has a tough start, he bounces back better than ever; this season, in his three starts that have immediately succeeded starts in which he allows at least three runs, Kershaw has a 1.19 ERA and a 0.75 WHIP, allowing three earned runs and striking out 31 over 22.2 innings. Obviously, it's a small sample size, but one of the many things that make Kershaw great is that he will not let one tough start build on him. Overall, he has a 2.28 ERA, a 0.90 WHIP, and 90 strikeouts over 83 innings, which is right in line with what is expected out of him.

AL Rookie of the Year: Aaron Judge (NYY): 18 HR, 41 RBI, .326 AVG, 4 SB, 197 wRC+. Last week: Judge.

Forget AL ROY, Judge is the frontrunner to take over the AL MVP spot once Trout misses enough games. He is leading the MLB with 18 home runs, and when you throw in his eight doubles, two triples, and 32 walks, he has an extremely impressive .326/.433/.691 slash line, regardless of the fact that he's a 25 year old rookie. He's currently riding a seven game hitting streak in which he has knocked three home runs, and he's actually drawn a walk as well in each of his past five. One possible red flag to watch is his strikeout rate, which has climbed from 26.7% in April to 29.7% in May to 42.9% in three June games (two strikeouts in each game), and it could be a sign of an impending slump. His walk rate also dropped from 14.4% in April to 13.5% in May, before jumping to 28.6% in June, though keep in mind for both the strikeout and walk rates that June's sample size is too small to really get much from the data. Analysts have been predicting Judge to slow down for some time now, and he's proven them wrong so far, so we can continue to sit back and enjoy the monster home runs and surprisingly high on-base percentages for now.

NL Rookie of the Year: Antonio Senzatela (COL): 7-2, 3.49 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 44/20 K/BB. Last week: Kyle Freeland.

Senzatela and rotation-mate Kyle Freeland are neck and neck for this award, but Senzatela has taken the lead for now. Through eleven starts, six of them in Coors Field, Senzatela has a 3.49 ERA and a 1.16 WHIP, striking out 44 batters in 67 innings. He wasn't as sharp in May as he was in April, having allowed four earned runs in three of his past four starts, but sandwiched inside was one of the greatest games any pitcher has thrown this season. Facing the Cardinals in Coors Field on May 26th, Senzatela tossed eight shutout innings and allowed just five hits and walked nobody, striking out three. First off, to allow no runs and no walks over eight innings is impressive regardless of the situation, but to do it in Coors Field, as a rookie, and against the St. Louis Cardinals, who aren't elite hitting-wise but certainly are no easy foe, is pretty amazing.

Minor League Watch: Chance Adams (NYY AAA): 7-1, 1.24 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, 59/22 K/BB. Last week: Kolby Allard.

Few players, if any, can match Chance Adams' minor league success over the past three years. Since being drafted in the fifth round, 153rd overall, out of Dallas Baptist University in 2015, Adams has been nearly untouchable. Over 49 games (34 starts), he is 23-3 with a 1.96 ERA, a 0.92 WHIP, and 248 strikeouts over 220.2 innings across five different levels. This season, he's been better than ever. Starting at AA Trenton, the 22 year old put up a 1.03 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP over six starts, striking out 32 in 35 innings. He was promoted to AAA Scranton-Wilkes Barre, and he's been just as good, putting up a 1.57 ERA and a 0.78 WHIP over four starts while striking out 27 in 23 innings. He hasn't allowed more than two earned runs in any start this season, and he had his best start on May 31st. Squaring up against Columbus, the Indians' AAA affiliate, he allowed just one hit and two walks while striking out 12 Clippers over six shutout innings. New York's rotation is full right now with Masahiro Tanaka, C.C. Sabathia, Michael Pineda, Luis Severino, and Jordan Montgomery, but once there's an opening, Adams could be the one to seize it.