Bob Cook

No one gets a trophy, a bonus or a brand new Escalade for these, the midseason, officially unlicensed-by-Major-League-Baseball awards as handed out by yours truly. However, none of the winners have to pay taxes on any of the midseason awards, so they have that going for them.

AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez, Yankees
The Yankees third baseman is having a monster season, leading the American League in home runs and RBIs and hovering near the top 10 in batting average. Anyone wanting to make a joke about Rodriguez again winning an MVP for a substandard team may please do so in this space.

NL MVP: Matt Holliday, Rockies
This is a tough one, because the NL features a lot of monster seasons for mediocre teams. Are we sure Alex Rodriguez isn’t in this league? (Oops. I didn’t make that joke in the designated space.) Prince Fielder of Milwaukee is the best player on a first-place team, but Holliday gets this award for being the all-around best player in the league right now. Though his manager, Clint Hurdle, is probably restraining himself from calling Holliday the next Mickey Mantle.

AL Cy Young: Johan Santana, Twins
C.C. Sabathia of Cleveland and Josh Beckett of Boston have gaudier records, but Santana is already into the second-half surge that will inevitably give him his third Cy Young in four years, and make anybody look stupid for picking anyone else at midseason. That is, unless voters start giving the AL Cy Young to other pitchers out of boredom, like how players other than Michael Jordan earned NBA MVP in the 1990s.

NL Cy Young: Jake Peavy, Padres
Brad Penny, Peavy and Chris Young all are having spectacular seasons, but I was ready to give the award to the Dodgers’ Penny over the two Padres pitchers because he doesn’t the luxury of San Diego’s pitcher-friendly stadium. That is, until I did the math. Indeed, Young, the league’s ERA leader, gets a Petco bump — as of July 4, he was 3-1 with an 0.80 ERA at home, and 5-2, 3.33 on the road. But Peavy is the opposite: 5-3, 3.00 at home, but 4-0, 0.94 on the road. So this award goes to Peavy. Unless you think he should be dinged because his 3.00 at Petco is way too high for such a pitcher-friendly stadium.

AL rookie of the year: Daisuke Matsuzaka, Red Sox
No future Bob Hamelins here. The Angels’ Reggie Willits, the Red Sox’s Dustin Pedroia and Hideki Okajima, the Devil Rays’ Delmon Young and Akinori Iwamura, the Orioles’ Jeremy Guthrie, the Athletics’ Travis Buck — they all look like they’ll be around awhile. But although the hype was sickening for Matsuzaka, though he had a rough May, and though his gyroball might not really exist, he’s the pick here. As of July 4, he was 10-5 with a 3.53 ERA that is continuing to plummet.

NL rookie of the year: Hunter Pence, Astros

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Pence tore up spring training as a center fielder with Houston, so of course he was sent to the minors in favor of Chris Burke, who is a better fit at second base. When Burke flopped, the Astros called for Pence. He leads the Astros in batting average, slugging percentage, on-base-plus-slugging percentage, stolen bases and triples, and is second in total bases. Plus, at a gawky-looking 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds, no one is ever going to accuse him of using steroids.

AL manager of the year: Mike Hargrove, Mariners (formerly)

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Darn you, Hargrove! Don’t you know this award just about always goes to the manager of the team no one thought would contend, yet doesn’t necessarily finish in first? By quitting on the Mariners just before the All-Star break, you’re forcing us to consider Eric Wedge in Cleveland, Mike Scioscia in Los Angeles, and last year’s winner, Jim Leyland in Detroit — all managers whose teams were expected to contend. Well, given you technically lasted more than half the season, and these are midseason awards, you, Hargrove, get this award as your parting gift. Show it to your family!

NL manager of the year: Bud Black, Padres

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Ordinarily, you wouldn’t give the award to a new manager who took a first-place team right back to first place, in part by keeping a first-place pitching staff in first place. But Black’s San Diego Padres aren’t having an ordinary season. Black, Mike Scioscia’s right-hand man and pitching coach with the Angels before moving south, has his pitchers sitting atop the NL with a 3.07 ERA. That's slightly more than three-quarters of a run better than anyone else in the league. The current .76 differential over the second-place Dodgers would obliterate the then-96-year-old record of .57 Los Angeles tied in 2003. Black has Jake Peavy back in his 2004-05 form, has Chris Young pitching better than he ever has, and has turned rookies and no-names such as Heath Bell, Kevin Cameron and Justin Hampson into top-flight middle relievers. Black has even exhumed the corpse of David Wells. Good thing, because at .242, the Padres are last in the NL in hitting. But even there, Black is squeezing the turnip. Last year’s Padres were 10th in hitting, but 13th in runs scored, while this year’s Padres are 12th in runs.

AL, NL executives of the year: Mark Shapiro, Indians; Doug Melvin, Brewers
Both Shapiro and Melvin get this award for a similar reason: building homegrown talent and winning on a budget.