Daily Baseball Update: 10/26: Hank Aaron award

Recipients: Jose Bautista (AL) and Matt Kemp (NL)

Though neither recipient's team made the playoffs, both had outstanding seasons and provide bright futures for their respective clubs. It goes without saying the Dodgers are glad the talks with the Nationals about a Kemp trade were unfruitful (though I'm not) and the Blue Jays are glad they traded for Bautista in the dog days of 2008. It also goes without saying Matt Kemp is glad he took up baseball over his favorite sport in high school: basketball. Bautista is certainly happy with the help Cito Gaston and Dwayne Murphy had to offer. Both players, Kemp and Bautista, tore up their respective leagues, striking fear in the eyes of every pitcher they faced and usually providing sustenance for that fear with a monster home run or clutch base hit. 

2011 Stat Lines

Bautista: 43 HR, 103 RBI, .302 AVG, 9 SB, 105 runs.

Kemp: 39 HR, 126 RBI, .324 AVG, 40 SB, 115 runs.

Before 2011

Bautista: Bautista wasn't actually a star until his fifth full season, but when he broke out, he broke out big time. After playing 75 games from 2004-2005 (0 HR, 3 RBI, .190 AVG), Bautista played his first full season in 2006, hitting 16 home runs and batting .235 for the Pirates. 2007 was the best year of the pre-breakout era, as he hit 15 home runs and batted .254 with 75 runs scored. 2008 and 2009, the latter with the Blue Jays, looked much like his 2006 as he combined for 28 home runs and a .237 AVG over the two. Bautista broke out in 2010, hitting 54 home runs, knocking in 124, and batting .260, winning the Hank Aaron award. His 2011 Hank Aaron award made him the first player to win the award in back to back seasons since Alex Rodriguez won three straight from 2001-2003, though Rodriguez admitted to steroid usage during that time. 

Kemp: After hitting 7 home runs and batting .253 in 52 games for the Dodgers in 2006, Kemp burst onto the scene in 2007 in hitting 10 home runs and batting .342 with 10 stolen bases in 98 games. He hit 18 home runs and batted .290 with 35 stolen bases in his first full season in 2008, then upped his line to 26 home runs and a .297 AVG with 34 stolen bases in 2009. After seeing everything but his power disappear in 2010 when he hit 28 home runs with a .249 AVG and 19 stolen bases, Kemp rebounded strongly with his award-winning season in 2011, becoming the first player ever to take the Hank Aaron award to Los Angeles since its induction in 1999.

2011 Season

Bautista: Jose Bautista started off 2011 with a bang, going 3-4 with a home run against Minnesota on Opening Day. In fact, Bautista's numbers over the first two months (roughly 1/3) of the season look like this: 20 HR, 38 RBI, .363 AVG. That would put him on track for roughly 60 home runs, 114 RBI, and obviously a .363 AVG.  The rest of Bautista's season wasn't as glamorous, as he hit 23 home runs, knocked in 65 runs, and batted .272 over the final 2/3 of the season. By the way, those are still All Star numbers. Bautista actually hit 7 home runs and batted .316 in July, but it was by a rough June in which he hit only four home runs and batted .258. However, nobody can argue with the final result: a Hank Aaron award.

Kemp: Matt Kemp saw much more consistency in his season than Bautista, batting at least .330 in four of the six months and never batting below .253 in any month. Kemp bursted out of the April gate (plus one game in March), hitting six home runs and batting .368 with 8 stolen bases. He was strong in May, hitting seven home runs despite batting just .253, but saw himself through the best month of his season in June. In summer's beginning, Kemp blasted 9 home runs and batted .375 with 8 stolen bases in 26 games. That would put him on pace for 54 home runs and 48 stolen bases, obviously coupled with a .375 AVG. After proceeding with the worst month of his season (4 HR, .274 AVG) in July, he batted .336 with 13 home runs over the season's final two months two establish himself as one of the premier hitters in the league.

Particular Team They Beat Up On

I thought it would be interesting to see their impact on certain teams.

Bautista: Minnesota Twins

Stat line: 7 HR, 9 RBI, .480 AVG (12-25). Though he only had 25 at bats, just 5 percent of his total, versus the Twins, Bautista tagged them for 16 percent of his home runs and 8 percent of his hits. Six different Twins pitchers served up home runs to Bautista: Nick Blackburn, Brian Duensing, Jim Hoey, Joe Nathan, Carl Pavano, and Kevin Slowey (two). Blackburn and Slowey were the only pitchers to strike him out, doing so once each. In his only at bat against Jim Hoey, Bautista hit a two run home run. He tagged Slowey for two home runs in four at bats and added three hits, including a double and a home run, in five at bats against Carl Pavano.

Kemp: Cincinnati Reds

Stat line: 3 HR, 8 RBI, .550 AVG (11-20), 2 SB. Kemp didn't have very many at bats versus the Reds, only 20 of them, but Kemp made the most of them. He hit ace Johnny Cueto particularly hard, with a 3-5 mark and a home run. In fact, only three of the nine Reds pitchers Kemp faced were able to keep him hitless (Francisco Cordero, Carlos Fisher and Nick Masset), and all three gave him exactly one at bat, each also walking him at least once. In his only at bat against Logan Ondrusek, Kemp hit a grand slam.

Interesting Facts

Bautista: Jose Bautista possesses significant power, but only doubled 24 times last season. That placed him 125th in the Majors and 62nd in the American League.

Kemp:  Kemp was not caught stealing a base from April 20th until August 2nd, a span of 20 successful swipes in 89 games. 

Game 6 Probables (World Series) Rangers@Cardinals: Colby Lewis (14-10, 4.40 ERA regular season, 1-1, 2.95 postseason) vs Jaime Garcia (13-7, 3.56 ERA regular season, 0-2, 3.97 postseason).

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Teams followed in this email: Boston Red Sox, Washington Nationals, New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs, Tampa Bay Rays, Los Angeles Dodgers, Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta Braves

If your team is not included or you would like to be included in the original email that I send out every morning, please leave a comment and I will take care of it.

HR: home runs.  RBI: runs batted in.  AVG: batting average.  SB: stolen bases.  ERA: earned run average.  BAA: batting average against.  K's: strikeouts. WPCT: winning percentage

Zack Silverman