The regular season is finally over, and today (Monday) nothing is happening, remarkable since it looked very much like we would have at least one extra playoff game, maybe two or three. Everyone has started handing out their postseason hardware; I'll quickly do the same.

AL Most Valuable Player

1. Vladimir Guerrero

2. Miguel Tejada

3. Ichiro Suzuki

4. Manny Ramirez

The feeling seems to be that Guerrero locked up the MVP with his amazing final week of the season. That's not entirely fair; it wasn't the fault of the other guys that their teams weren't fighting for a playoff spot on the final weekend. I like to think that all 162 games are of equal value, and no extra cookies should be awarded for playing better in September than in, say, June.

But Vlad was a monster all season; I think he was better than either Ramirez or Sheffield, and may have been the best player in the league, depending on how you feel about Tejada's defense, or the peculiar talents of Ichiro Suzuki and Melvin Mora.

NL Most Valuable Player

1. Barry Bonds

2. Adrian Beltre

3. Albert Pujols

4. Jim Edmonds

Bonds, at age 39, was again the World's Greatest Hitter. Anyone who does not vote for Bonds apparently does not understand the freakishness of a .609 on-base percentage.

Pujols, once again, was the best hitter in the world not named Bonds. But it's impossible not to be swayed by Beltre's credentials; Adrian had a great year with the bat (if not quite at Pujols' level) and is a wonderful defensive third baseman. The Dodgers had to wait three years for him to get his career back on track, but I reckon that it was worth the wait.

AL Cy Young

1. Johan Santana

2. Curt Schilling

3. Mariano Rivera

4. Joe Nathan

Santana had a 5.40 ERA in April and a 5.79 ERA in May. What followed next must rank among the greatest four-month stretches by any pitcher in history (to be precise, Santana had a 1.51 ERA over the last four months).

Schilling appears to be headed for yet another runner-up finish in the Cy Young voting. That will be inconsequential if he brings a championship to ring to Boston. After that, I don't know how to choose from the remaining starters so instead I will take a couple of closers.

NL Cy Young

1. Randy Johnson

2. Roger Clemens

3. Ben Sheets

4. Jason Schmidt

Johnson and Sheets were the hard-luck hurlers; you can argue that they were the best two pitchers in the league, but both were sunk by crappy support from their teams. The Rocket had a great start to the year, scuffled a bit late in the summer but rounded back into form when the Astros made their run.

Schmidt was awesome the first five months of the year, but never recovered from an August hamstring injury that effectively ended the Giants' season. There are other guys, like Carlos Zambrano and Roy Oswalt, who also deserve a look,

It's close; I think Clemens will win, and he's got a good case. But The Unit was the best pitcher in the league.

AL Rookie of the Year

1. Bobby Crosby

2. Zack Greinke

A weak crop of rookies this season. I think Greinke performed at a higher level than Crosby, but it's tough to take a pitcher with 145 innings over a shortstop who plays every day. I doubt that the voters will give a Gold Glove to a rookie shortstop — but I can't think of an agreeable alternative in the AL this year.

NL Rookie of the Year

1. Jason Bay

2. Khalil Greene

A tough call between a slick shortstop who got hurt in the final month of the season, and a slugger who didn't get into the lineup until May. Greene's teammate, Akinori Otsuka, also has an interesting argument.

AL Manager of the Year

Ron Gardenhire

I know this award will go to Buck Showalter, and perhaps deservedly, but Gardenhire has now won three straight division titles. If the rumours are true, that it was Gardenhire who demanded that Justin Morneau be called up and forced Terry Ryan to deal Mientkiewicz, then I'm especially impressed.

NL Manager of the Year

Bobby Cox

After the Blue Jays' disastrous season, us Torontonians are perhaps a little more acutely aware of Cox's amazing ability to get the team into the playoffs year after year after year... sure, his postseason record ain't too hot, but you can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket.

AL All-Stars

CA Ivan Rodriguez (Jorge Posada)

1B Mark Teixeira (Paul Konerko)

2B Ron Belliard (Mark Bellhorn)

3B Alex Rodriguez (Melvin Mora)

SS Miguel Tejada (Derek Jeter)

OF Manny Ramirez (Hideki Matsui)

OF Ichiro Suzuki (Johnny Damon)

OF Vladimir Guerrero (Gary Sheffield)

DH David Ortiz (Travis Hafner)

SP Johan Santana (Curt Schilling)

RP Mariano Rivera (Joe Nathan)

Four catchers (Rodriguez, Posada, Martinez, Lopez) were almost interchangeable. Pudge had the best numbers, though he also played the fewest games behind the plate.

One of these does not belong, but it was some kind of weak season for second basemen in the American League, so we'll have to make do with Belliard.

Mora was fantastic with the bat, clearly better than A-Rod, but spent time on the DL, and he appeared to struggle on defense.

Sheffield will do very well in the MVP voting, and he certainly had some hot stretches during the summer when he carried the Yankees. But he also had three months (April, May, September) in which he wasn't very good. I don't see him as one of the top three outfielders in the league.

NL All-Stars

CA Jason Kendall (Johnny Estrada)

1B Albert Pujols (Todd Helton)

2B Mark Loretta (Jeff Kent)

3B Adrian Beltre (Scott Rolen)

SS Jack Wilson (Cesar Izturis)

OF Barry Bonds (Adam Dunn)

OF Jim Edmonds (Lance Berkman)

OF Bobby Abreu (JD Drew)

SP Randy Johnson (Roger Clemens)

RP Eric Gagne (Brad Lidge)

Mark Loretta was by far the best second baseman in baseball, and when some more advanced defensive stats get published, I might think more seriously about moving him up in my MVP rankings.

Wilson and Izturis are glove men who both had remarkable seasons with the bat. I think Wilson was a little better with both the bat and glove.

With the amount of press he gets, you might think that Bobby Abreu didn't exist. But he does, and he really had an amazing season.

Predictions:

Last year, I predicted a Boston-Atlanta World Series. That turned out to be a spectacularly bad prediction, so I'm trying it again.

Division Series

Boston over Anaheim

Minnesota over New York

Atlanta over Houston

St. Louis over Los Angeles

LCS

Boston over Minnesota

Atlanta over St. Louis

World Series

Atlanta over Boston

Boston's actually much better than Atlanta, but, well, you know... you could have made a lot of money over the years betting against the Red Sox.

JOHN CERUTTI: I watch and listen to a lot of baseball on television and radio over the course of the season. Up here in Toronto, I probably watched part of least 90 Jays games on the local Sportsnet channel, with the play-by-play duo of Rob Faulds and John Cerutti. I've never met either of them, but when you let someone into your home almost every day during the summer, you can't help but feel an attachment to them.

John Cerutti passed away, from natural causes, on Sunday, at age 44. When I was ten years old, John made his debut with the Jays in 1985, and pitched with the team until 1990. After he left baseball, he started his broadcasting career; he began doing a handful of Jays games a year on the CBC in the late 90's, then moved to cable and over the past three seasons became the "voice" of the team on television.

It is the peculiar nature of professional sports that I was able to follow John's career pretty closely for almost 20 years, both on the field and in the broadcast booth. Some stuff sticks out in my mind; I vaguely recall his first career start, which he lost to Phil Niekro in what was Niekro's 300th career win (the kid never had a chance; the Jays had already won the division, and had their B-lineup against the Old Man). I remember the first Jays win at the SkyDome; but I had forgotten the playoff game in 1989 when he picked Rickey Henderson off of first base, a play that has been replayed frequently the past couple of days.

Much has already been said and written here in Toronto by the people who knew John well, and at the moment I don't have the words to express what his loss means to his family and friends. All I will say is that I appreciate the work he did over many years for Toronto fans, and I will miss him.