Fall has officially arrived, just over a week after the momentous 2018 New Hampshire Fisher Cats season came to its climatic conclusion. The clubhouse is empty at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium, with members of this year’s team now long gone, moving forward to what they hope will be their next stop on the path to Major League Baseball.
As the Fisher Cats’ third championship season is beginning to fade into memory, it is time to take one look back and honor this year’s Fisher Cat MVPs
Batting: Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
To paraphrase David Price, this year Cavan Biggio was the MVP of the Eastern League, but Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was the MVP of the Fisher Cats.
It’s unlikely that anyone in Manchester will see another media spectacle like Guerrero, from the walk-off homecoming homer on the final day of Spring Training to Plakata to the fact that he continued to lead the league in RBI for almost three weeks without playing a single game to his sheer presence in the clubhouse and beyond.
And while Biggio is also the son of a Hall of Famer like Guerrero Jr., Vlad’s four years younger.
With the Josh Donaldson out of Toronto as expected (earlier than expected), it seems almost certain that Guerrero Jr. will be starting at third in Toronto next season. Quite frankly, he should be in Toronto this month, but he was likely held back due to Super 2 concerns.
Batting (Runner Up) Jonathan Davis
Biggio, Bo Bichette or about half a dozen other players could have made the “honorable mention” podium, but this nod goes to the man who hit the first cycle in Fisher Cats history.
Davis was at or near the league lead in runs scored and stolen bases until his promotion in August, with Bichette hot on his heels. However, there Davis had more consistency than Bichette and led off almost every night early in the year, while Bichette platooned at the top of the lineup with Davis, Forrest Wall and Jon Berti come mid-summer.
Unlike Guerrero, it’s not clear whether Davis will get a permanent callup to Toronto, but he did get his first crack at the bigs after the end of the International League season, so that’s a good sign for him.
Pitching: Jordan Romano
Unlike the Biggio/Guerrero conundrum, it’s appropriate to say that the Eastern League righthanded pitcher of the year was also the Fisher Cats’ top pitcher of the year.
T.J. Zeuch was certainly hot on Romano’s heels at some points of the season, but Romano pitched 27 more innings than Zeuch. Jon Harris also made some incredible strides this year and actually had more wins and only pitched one fewer inning than Romano, but Romano struck out 26 more batters and had nine fewer earned runs.
Pitching (Runner Up): Travis Bergen
In the bullpen, the closer role was up for grabs until Bergen seized it in July. He ended the year with seven saves in eight opportunities during the regular season as well as another two in the playoffs.
Between Dunedin and New Hampshire, he finished the year with a 0.95 ERA, with opposing Eastern League batters hitting just .195 against him. And those numbers didn’t come from garbage time, Fisher Cats manager John Schneider generally reserved Bergen for key situations later in the season.
