Bleacher Report's 2014 World Series Awards

The ultimate goal of Major League Baseball's season? Win the World Series and the Commissioner's Trophy that comes as a tangible representation of being the last team standing.

With the San Francisco Giants' 3-2 victory over the Kansas City Royals in Wednesday's fateful, do-or-die seventh game, we now know the winning team.

The only thing left to do before tying a bow on the 2014 season is hand out some championship-related hardware to the individuals based on the best of the best in the Fall Classic that just wrapped.

The envelopes, please...

Both managers made some questionable decisions in this Fall Classic, but that's bound to happen when every single one is first-, second- and third-guessed on Twitter before, shortly after and even well after it plays out on the actual field.

Bruce Bochy, however, managed his team to the title for a third time in five seasons—every manager in MLB history with three or more rings is in the Hall of Fame—so he gets the honor here.

As Bochy told Hal Bodley of MLB.com at the outset of the World Series:

You understand how difficult this is. ... It's not that easy. I mean, first of all, you've got to get there. Then the road to get there now is a lot more difficult than it used to be. It used to be two pennant winners going at it, and now you have to go through some playoffs, and this year we had the extra one with the [Wild Card Game].

Despite his occasional missteps, Bochy pushed the right buttons with his left-field platoon of Travis Ishikawa, Michael Morse and Juan Perez, and he handled his bullpen well.

Kudos to the Royals' Ned Yost, too, but the big difference is that Bochy had the ability to hand the ball to Madison Bumgarner not once, not twice, but three times. That helped make him look pretty darn smart, even if it was an obvious decision each time.

Even though the Royals lost, there actually were quite a few options for this honor, which makes sense given that the series went the full seven games.

There was catcher Salvador Perez (.333/.360/.500), second baseman Omar Infante (.318/.333/.591) and righty Yordano Ventura, who won't be going home empty-handed. If you'd rather give this to any of those three instead of to Lorenzo Cain, that's perfectly acceptable.

The Kansas City center fielder, though, was just as good at the plate (.308/.400/.385)—his four runs scored and .400 on-base percentage both topped the club—while also playing his usual superb defense. That's a hard-to-beat combo.

When things started to get out of hand for San Francisco's Game 7 starter Tim Hudson in the second inning, it wasn't Bumgarner who was brought in—it was Jeremy Affeldt.

Normally used only in the mid- to late innings, the southpaw came on in relief of Hudson, who tallied just five outs to open the game. Despite the unfamiliar setting—he hadn't come into a contest before the sixth inning all season long—Affeldt contributed 2.1 scoreless frames to not only show some unexpected stamina but also to pick up the win in the World Series-clinching game.

As Randy Covitz of the The Kansas City Star writes, "Affeldt had completed the longest postseason outing of his career in relief of Hudson, who worked just 1.2 innings. Affeldt has now recorded a scoreless outing in 22 consecutive postseason games, the second longest in history, trailing only Mariano Rivera's 23."

In fact, that streak dates all the way back to Game 3 of the 2010 World Series.

Big ups to Juan Perez of the Giants, who merited consideration for his all-around effort in Game 5 alone. He entered as a pinch-runner for starting left fielder Travis Ishikawa in the sixth inning, followed that up with a nice catch in the seventh on Perez's deep drive near the left-field wall and then capped things off with a key two-run double that hit off the very top of the wall an inning later.

Perez did all of that after learning in the early innings Sunday that his friend and fellow Dominican Republic native, Oscar Taveras of the St. Louis Cardinals, had died tragically in a car accident. Perez dedicated his performance to Taveras.

There were four rookies in the World Series—Yordano Ventura and Brandon Finnegan for the Royals, and Joe Panik and Hunter Strickland for the Giants—but Kansas City's hard-throwing right-hander stood out from the pack.

The 23-year-old delivered a dominating Game 6 performance that proved to be the Royals' best start of the postseason at a time when they needed it most. That he held the Giants scoreless over seven innings of three-hit ball, all in the aftermath of the tragic death of friend and fellow Dominican Oscar Taveras, was even more impressive.

Panik wasn't bad himself, hitting a little and flashing some nice leather, including that highlight-reel diving-stop-and-glove-flip to start a 4-6-3 double play in Game 7.

As for Finnegan and Strickland, the two relievers made history—the former became the first ever to play in both the College World Series and MLB World Series in the same year, the latter surrendered a record six homers in a single postseason—but Ventura's Game 6 was too good in and of itself.

What, you were expecting someone else?

Madison Bumgarner owned October and was even more wonderful in the World Series, pitching a whopping 21 innings and allowing but one run on nine hits with a 17-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

The Giants ace hurled a seven-inning gem to win Game 1, then upped that by twirling a complete-game, four-hit shutout in Game 5—the first since Josh Beckett's for the Florida Marlins in 2003—in which he struck out eight and didn't allow a runner past second base.

"The guy's phenomenal," Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas said, per Dick Kaegel of MLB.com after Bumgarner's Game 5 shutout. "He commanded all of his pitches, and when you thought you knew something, he did the exact opposite. That's what makes him good right now."

But the 25-year-old wasn't done. Bumgarner did something even more remarkable by coming back on two days' rest—after throwing 117 pitches—and put up five more scoreless frames, all in relief, to close out Game 7 and the series.

"I wasn't focused on how many innings I could go," Bumgarner said following Game 7. "I was just concentrating on getting outs."

If you're keeping score at home, that's two wins and a save—the first of his professional career—for the big southpaw.

"We’ve come to expect that out of him, performances like this," Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford said, via Matt Kawahara of The Sacramento Bee. "I think if you looked at him in the middle of the game, you wouldn’t be able to tell if it was some game in the middle of the year or a World Series game. He’s such a great competitor. It’s fun to watch."

Also fun? Computing Bumgarner's career World Series ERA, which at 0.25 is the lowest ever in the Fall Classic.

Read  here: http://www.sacbee.com/sports/mlb/san-francisco-giants/article3399117.html#storylink=cpy

owns lowest World Series ERA—a microscopic 0.29 over four starts—ever among pitchers with at least TK innings

Here's how great Wade Davis was this year and in the World Series, in particular: When the Royals' reliever actually gave up a double in Game 5 to Juan Perez on a ball that hit off the tippy-top of the center field wall, it became something of a story unto itself.

Why? Because to that point, the right-hander had surrendered only seven extra-base hits—and no homers—throughout the entirety of the 2014 regular and postseasons. Although he did give up a run in that Game 5 outing, it was his only one of the Fall Classic, and it was unearned, anyway.

Overall, Davis saw action in four contests, throwing five frames while tolerating just three hits against an immaculate 10-to-0 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

The only pitcher to hurl more innings without permitting an earned run was Affeldt (5.1 innings), but he didn't register a single strikeout. Besides, the Giants lefty already took home the Most Surprising Performer honor. This one belongs to Davis.

Look, the Giants could have lost the 2014 World Series and Bumgarner still was going to get MVP here.

As it turns out, though, San Francisco did win it all for the third time in five seasons, and the man most responsible followed up his NLCS MVP with a World Series one, too.

For so much of this postseason, the narrative was about putting the ball in play, playing good defense and deploying dynamic bullpens. After watching what Bumgarner did this month, however, it would appear the conventional wisdom that a team needs a dominant starting pitcher to shut down the opposition in October remains alive and well.

"He's in a league of his own right now," Royals manager Ned Yost said of Bumgarner—whose 52.2 innings are the most ever by a pitcher in a single postseason and twice as many as any other arm this month—in his on-air interview after the game.

Legendary Giants pitcher Juan Marichal went as far as to call Bumgarner "cold-blooded," according to Daniel Brown of the San Jose Mercury News, while fellow current lefty Affeldt said simply, "That's the best performance I've ever seen in the playoffs. Ever."

When Bumgarner got the final out of Game 7 and dog-piled with his teammates shortly thereafter, the only thing that was left for him to do was continue his now-recognizable custom of drinking-slash-pouring as many beers simultaneously as possible during the clubhouse celebration.

"I'm a little tired now," Bumgarner finally admitted sheepishly after being handed the World Series MVP trophy.

It's OK, Madison, you're allowed to be. And now you and your MVP Award and third World Series ring can rest up all offseason.

Statistics are accurate through Oct. 29 and courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs, unless otherwise noted.

To talk baseball or fantasy baseball, check in with me on Twitter: @JayCat11.