CCR #2: MLB Awards from San Jose Fuji

Damn... the Padres lost again... and are out of first place by 1/2 game. At least the A's won... but the playoffs are out of the question for them.

Anyways... I guess today is a day of halves. Padres are a 1/2 game back. Half of my baseball teams won... half lost. In football it's the same story... half of my teams were victorious, the other embarassed. The Packers destroyed the Bills, but the Seahawks were demolished by the Broncos.

But whatever... you're not here to listen to me whine and complain. You're here to see my predictions for the MLB MVP, Cy Young, and ROY awards.

So without further adieu...

AL MVP - Miguel Cabrera: leads the MLB in RBI's with 118, hitting .329 (3rd highest batting average in AL), and has the 3rd most home runs in the AL (with 34).

NL MVP - Albert Pujols: leads the NL in RBI's (107) and HR's (39), is batting .307, has the 2nd highest OBP in the NL, and the 3rd highest slugging percentage. I'll be honest, Votto's stats are just as good... but if I had to have one 1b on my team, it'd be Pujols.

I know it's more than about who's the best hitter... it's about who's most valuable to their team. However, in my mind if you're the best hitter in the league, you're valuable to your team.

AL Cy Young - Felix Hernandez: leads the MLB in strikeouts with 222 k's and leads the AL with a 2.35 ERA. He may not be anywhere near the top in wins, but that's not completely his fault. The Mariners have scored the least amount of runs in baseball this season. Forty-seven less than the Pirates who many consider the worst team in baseball. In short... it's not Felix's fault that he doesn't have 20 wins like Sabathia (the Yankees have scored 320 more runs than the Mariners this season).

NL Cy Young - Roy Halladay: 1st in the NL with 19 wins, 2nd in the NL with 210 k's, and is 3rd in the NL with an ERA of 2.49. Nobody else in the NL is in the top 3 of all of these major pitching categories.

AL ROY - Daniel Hudson: I'm not sure if this guy qualifies... but there's slim pickings when it comes to AL rookies. I wanted to pick Austin Jackson, but the guy struck out 159 times... to go with his 169 hits. Anyways... Hudson has gone 7-2 this season for the Diamondbacks and has an astounding 2.49 ERA with 79 strikeouts. He's allowed only 6 earned runs in his last 6 starts, while striking out 38 batters.

NL ROY - Buster Posey: leads NL rookies with a .325 batting average, has 61 RBI's (4th among NL rookies), and has 14 home runs (6th among NL rookies)

When the awards are finally published in a few weeks or months... I'm going to guess that I predicted half of these guys correctly... and half of them incorrectly. ;-)

Cardboard Collector's Roundtable #1: NFL Predictions

For those who don't know what jambalaya is... it's a Louisiana Creole dish of Spanish and French influence. It's a bunch of ingredients thrown together to create a delicious meal. In short... this blog is a living metaphor of jambalaya. Instead of chicken, rice, tomatoes, shrimp, spices, onions, celery, and bell peppers... you're going to get a mixture of posts from bloggers all over the world who are sports enthusiasts.

Sports Jambalaya has only been around for a few weeks... and so far articles have ranged from basketball to baseball to cricket... and back to baseball.

Well today is the beginning of a new adventure for Sports Jambalaya. In addition to articles from a growing list of bloggers... we'll also begin having a roundtable of sorts where a bunch of us come together and write about a featured topic. It's a chance for our readers to see the point of views from a variety of bloggers... as we argue and debate our opinions.

The topic will change each week and we encourage you to participate as well. Share your opinions. Tell us who you agree with and who you don't. Offer up topic suggestions. Essentially... it's an open table and you're invited.

This week's topic: NFL Predictions

We'll be writing about our playoff predictions and giving you our Super Bowl picks. Your job as Sports Jambalaya readers is to tell us who's right and who's wrong... then share with the rest of the blogworld your picks.

So grab your beverage of choice and get ready to join the party!