St. Louis Cardinals: Handing out 2020 team awards

The St. Louis Cardinals overcame a ton of adversity to make the playoffs in 2020. With their season done, we can hand out team awards.

Almost as quickly as it started, the St. Louis Cardinals‘ 2020 season is over. After their disappointing bounce from the playoffs last week against the Padres, we haven’t had any news or much to get excited about other than Adam Wainwright joining the booth for the Braves and Marlins series.

While we will have plenty of fun coming up this winter, reflecting back on the 2020 season with all its weirdness is necessary. Old habits came back from 2019 with the disappearing offense, the pitching suffered multiple injuries, and there was a 17-day break from COVID-19. There was plenty to get frustrated about, but no other team had to face as much adversity as the Cardinals, which definitely had an effect on performance.

Even with a disappointing finish, we can still hand out end-of-year awards. Let’s dive in.

MVP: Paul Goldschmidt

This decision was easy. Now in his second year with the club, Goldschmidt looked a lot more comfortable at the plate, and the results came. While he didn’t hit for as much power as he has at times in his career, Goldy was far and away the Cardinals’ best hitter this year.

Finishing the year with a .304/.417/.466 slash line, Goldy jumped back up to a career-normal 146 wRC+. He continued to be a stud in the field and paced the Cardinals with a 2.1 fWAR. The stat sheet numbers look great for Goldy, and he was certainly the player fans expected when we traded for him. However, there is some concern that the majority of his production came from walks. That came from pitchers pitching around him consistently because he had nobody around him to protect him.

Either way, Goldy was much better this year and is very deserving of the MVP honors.

Cy Young: Adam Wainwright

The ageless wonder continued to prove that he could hang with the kids. At 39 years old for the majority of the season, Waino led the pitching staff with 65.2 innings thrown and a 1.0 fWAR. He made 10 starts and had just a 3.15 ERA while averaging just 89.3 mph on his fastball.

Adam Wainwright stepped up big many times in big games and showed that he could adapt to having less in the tank as far as “stuff” goes. Nobody knows if he will be back in 2020, but if he decides to hang up his cleats and jump into a broadcasting booth moving forward, he went out on top.

Rookie of the Year: Kwang Hyun Kim

As great as Dylan Carlson was for the final two weeks of the season, Kim deserves the Rookie of the Year award.

More from St Louis Cardinals News

• Lars Nootbaar is a prime Cardinals trade candidate
• Cardinals: Former MLB GM calls Jordan Walker a superstar for 2023
• Cardinals: Cubs looking to make major moves this offseason
• St. Louis Cardinals: New CBA rule encourages Jordan Walker’s promotion
• Cardinals: These are the ways St. Louis can free up more payroll

After signing a two-year, $8M deal to come to the MLB after playing in the KBO, Kim threw 39.0 innings with just a 1.62 ERA. A rookie at age 31, Kim was getting a little lucky to be fair, but he was a great addition to the rotation as a crafty lefty that nobody in the MLB had seen before. As the league sees more and more of him, Kim is likely to regress some, but at his production and his cost to the team, it was a great rookie year.

Reliever of the Year: Tyler Webb

Despite what many fans want, Tyler Webb just keeps getting results. By almost every metric, Webb does not have good stuff. Spin rate, velocity, movement, nothing. Bland as a sheet of printer paper. However, he finds a way to get soft contact.

On the year, Webb led Cardinal relievers in appearances and ERA (not counting Gomber in this). To be fair, he rarely appeared in very high-pressure situations, but he did succeed there. The bullpen also saw phenomenal years from John Gant, Alex Reyes, and Andrew Miller, but Webb has them beat by counting stats. I also know that putting Webb here will make at least one person angry, and that cracks me up.

There is a lot to be said about the 2020 Cardinals making the playoffs at all, regardless of their exit. Sure, there are things to work on moving forward, but this team has a solid foundation of youth to build on moving forward.