Your primer to this week's BBWAA award announcements

The season ended two weeks ago, free agents are beginning to sign with new clubs and every team around baseball is fully ensconced in reshaping rosters for 2017.

But first, there's still one final task that must be completed before everyone can truly turn the page on the 2016 season: Hand out the major individual awards.

That process will play out over the next four nights as the winners of the four awards given out by the Baseball Writers' Association of America are announced. It begins tonight with the Rookies of the Year, continues Tuesday with the Managers of the Year, then Wednesday with the Cy Young Awards and finally Thursday with the MVPs.

And if you're a Nationals fan, you've got reason to watch the award shows (6 p.m. EST each night on MLB Network) with a particularly keen eye. The Nats have finalists in all four categories, the first time any National League team has been able to claim that since the 1996 Braves.

Keep in mind that in order to be deemed a finalist, a player finished in the top three in voting among BBWAA members, all of which took place before the postseason. The results haven't changed at all since then. We've just had to wait until now to learn the results.

(Full disclosure: I had a vote for one of the awards. I'm not allowed to reveal it until it's announced, but once that happens I'll be publishing a full explanation of my thought process.)

Before the award winners are named, though, let's run through all four categories in the NL and offer some odds on the Nationals representatives emerging victorious.

NL ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
Revealed: Monday at 6:15 p.m. EST
Finalists: Kenta Maeda, Dodgers; Corey Seager, Dodgers; Trea Turner, Nationals

Turner absolutely performed well enough to win Rookie of the Year, even though he played only half a season in the majors. He hit .342 with 13 homers, 40 RBIs, 53 runs, 33 stolen bases and a .937 OPS in only 73 games while also learning center field on the fly, all of which produced a WAR of 3.5.

The only problem: Seager put up big-time numbers over the entire season. The Dodgers shortstop played in 157 games, hitting .308 with 26 homers, 72 RBIs, 105 runs, an .877 OPS and 6.1 WAR. That makes the 22-year-old an overwhelming favorite to be named Rookie of the Year tonight.

Turner could finish second ahead of Maeda, the 28-year-old right-hander who in his first season after leaving his native Japan went 16-11 with a 3.48 ERA and 179 strikeouts in 32 starts for Los Angeles. But the chance of either Turner or Maeda jumping ahead of Seager in voting seems awfully weak.

NL MANAGER OF THE YEAR
Revealed: Tuesday at 6:45 p.m. EST
Finalists: Dusty Baker, Nationals; Joe Maddon, Cubs; Dave Roberts, Dodgers

Baker did a fantastic job in his first season in D.C. It's easy to forget now just how much disarray the Nats were in one year ago when Matt Williams was fired (only 11 months after winning Manager of the Year honors himself). There are a lot of reasons for that, but Baker certainly ranks high on the list.

This is nothing new for Dusty, of course. He's already a three-time winner of the NL Manager of the Year Award, in 1993, 1997 and 2000 with the Giants. He also finished second in 2003 with the Cubs and in both 2010 and 2012 with the Reds. A win Tuesday night would make him only the third man ever to win four Manager of the Year Awards, joining Bobby Cox and Tony La Russa.

Will that happen? Well, he's facing some awfully stiff competition. Maddon (a three-time winner himself) guided the Cubs to 103 wins (not to mention their first World Series title since 1908, though votes were submitted long before that). And Roberts led the Dodgers to 95 wins and a division title despite having a record 29 players land on the disabled list along the way.

Maybe there's a surprise forthcoming, but the safer bet is for Baker to finish behind one or both of his fellow finalists.

NL CY YOUNG AWARD
Revealed: Wednesday at 6:15 p.m. EST
Finalists: Kyle Hendricks, Cubs; Jon Lester, Cubs; Max Scherzer, Nationals

This figures to be the Nationals' best shot for a major award winner this week. Scherzer had a fantastic season, leading the NL in wins (20), innings (228 1/3), strikeouts (293), WHIP (0.97) and WAR (6.2) He did not, however, post an exceptionally low ERA, ranking eighth in the NL with a mark of 2.96. He also gave up a whopping 31 homers, most in the league.

Truth be told, you can make a compelling case for any of the three finalists to win. Hendricks had the best ERA in the league (2.13) and the lowest opponents' OPS (.581). Lester didn't lead the league in any categories, but he bested Scherzer in ERA (2.44) and opponents' OPS (.602) while winning 19 games and topping the 200-inning barrier.

This one's wide open, probably coming down to which stats are most important to voters, and whether or not the presence of two Cubs in the mix led to a splitting of votes to some extent, which would help Scherzer's cause.

NL MVP
Revealed: Thursday at 6:45 p.m. EST
Finalists: Kris Bryant, Cubs; Daniel Murphy, Nationals; Corey Seager, Dodgers

For much of the season, Murphy appeared to be the frontrunner to win the MVP; he maintained an OPS over 1.000 as late as August 27, a batting average over .360 as late as June 18. And his final numbers (.347 with 25 homers, 104 RBIs and a .985 OPS) certainly are worthy of MVP consideration.

But Bryant heads into this week's announcement as the frontrunner after finishing strong and raising his season totals to a .292 average, 39 homers, 102 RBIs, 121 runs and .939 OPS. He also showed more defensive versatility and talent than Murphy, explaining in part why he outperformed Murphy in WAR, 7.7 to 4.6. Seager, meanwhile, wasn't just good enough to merit Rookie of the Year consideration; he also finished in the top three in the MVP race.

Murphy could sneak away with this one and become the Nationals' second consecutive NL MVP on the heels of Bryce Harper's 2015 victory. But Bryant has a lot going for him including this simple fact: He was the best player on the best team. Even with today's advanced statistical analysis methods, that still counts for something among many voters.