The Comeback Player of the Year Award is a tough one to
predict from year-to-year. For example, David Price won the award in 2018 with
the Boston Red Sox, but my initial thought was what exactly did Price come back
from? He came back from getting shelled by the Yankees in 2017, so that made
him eligible to win the award? So, with that said I tried to do my best to make
an educated guess at these awards, but like most of my predictions they will
very likely be wrong.
I know everyone expects me to pick Gary Sanchez of the New
York Yankees, partly because of his terrible offensive season in 2018 and
partly because I am a self-professed “Yankees homer” in a lot of cases, but
that would be too easy. Instead, I’ll pick a guy that made Gary Sanchez want to
punch him in the mouth, Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers. Cabrera has been
down for quite a number of seasons now, but I think a lot of that wear-and-tear
will be nullified with his full-time move to the DH position this coming year. I
think the Tigers can extend Miggy’s career by a couple years with the move and
I also think the team will see immediate dividends here in 2019.
In the National League I tried to pick a true comeback
player. I tried to pick a player that had come back from adversity or injury to
take the 2019 season by storm. I tried to pick a pitcher that came back from
Tommy John surgery only to suffer a pretty serious shoulder injury that cost
him much of his 2018 campaign as well. My pick for the NL Comeback Player of
the Year is Alex Reyes of the St. Louis Cardinals, for all the aforementioned
reasons.
