Baseball Bloggers Alliance Award Winners

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance has chosen annual award winners in both leagues.  Unsurprisingly this group of well-informed baseball devotee's picks mirrored mine very closely.

Here are their winners in the order they were posted with links to their announcements:

Connie Mack Award (Manager of the Year)
AL: John Farrell
NL: Clint Hurdle

I had the same picks, although I had Francona in 3rd place while in the BBA they were a very close 1-2. Much as I love Tito I feel like he had more to work with than Kansas City's Ned Yost.

Willie Mays Award (Top Rookie)
AL: Wil Myers
NL: Jose Fernandez

Again, we matched, although I'm a little surprised at how much of a landslide the BBA gave to Wil Myers, and very pleasantly surprised that Fernandez easily bested Puig.

Goose Gossage Award (Top Reliever)
AL: Koji Uehara
NL: Craig Kimbrel

Again, two perfect picks. Kimbrel received 90% of the votes and I really didn't hesitate at all in putting his name on my ballot, so I can see why.  Koji edged Greg Holland 52% to 36% and I also had them 1-2.  In 3rd place I infamously picked the Twins' Joe Nathan, and as I've been told numerous times now, he spent the season in Arlington. But I'm not going back to edit that post now.  I deserve all the mocking cast my way.

Walter Johnson Award (Top Pitcher)
AL: Max Scherzer
NL: Clayton Kershaw

No surprises there. I am curious as to who received the vote(s) that didn't go to Kershaw, as he only ended up with 98% of the votes.  Then again, I was the village idiot who didn't cast his vote for Scherzer so there's always some in the crowd, I guess.

Stan Musial Award (Top Player)
AL: Mike Trout
NL: Andrew McCutchen

Again, both RSN Alberta and the  BBA picked Trout over Cabrera. In my mind, however, this year Miggy has a better case.  As I outlined in my voting post, he had a better season than in 2012, and Trout's year wasn't quite as good as his rookie campaign.  But Trout was still better and rightfully received this award.   McCutchen was also a deserving recipient in the NL.

All in all, a great job by the guys and gals of the BBA.  Unlike the BBWAA, I don't think we've ever made grossly negligent picks.  I'm waiting to hear what the more established group picks for its awards.  I won't be as upset this year if they pick Miggy over Trout, last year was inexcusable, this year I can see it.  But I will be fuming when they pick Puig over the much more deserving Fernandez for NL Rookie.  Let's wait and see, maybe they'll prove me wrong and make the right picks this year.

Enjoy the offseason! It will be a good one for all us Red Sox fans!!  I'm going to be watching the below over and over again :)

2013 Stan Musial Award - AL Player of the Year

My final award in the Baseball Bloggers Alliance year end voting, is the Stan Musial Award for the player of the year. Last year in a slightly controversial vote I ignored Miguel Cabrera's triple crown, and cast my ballot for Mike Trout instead.  Well, this year, with a lot less media hype Cabrera had an even better season!  His batting average went up from .330 to .348. He hit the same number of home runs and only 2 less RBI in 67 fewer at-bats.  His walk ratio increased from below 10 to 14%.  He led the league in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging, to obviously lead in OPS / OPS+ as well. He led in OPS last season as well with .999, but this year he was at 1.078, the highest mark in the American League since 2006. Maybe I can make it up to Tigers fans by voting for him this year, when he'll need more of a push as he didn't get the glitzy (but meaningless) triple crown.

2013 Goose Gossage Award - AL Reliever of the Year

In my series of Baseball Bloggers Alliance award winners, today I am revealing my vote for the Goose Gossage Award for reliever of the year.  On a side note, there is an Alberta connection here as Mr. Gossage was in Calgary earlier this year.

This award always seems to stay in the East. In 2011, in a vote that was controversial with many of my readers, I selected the Yankees David Robertson over our own Jonathan Papelbon.  Last year, despite Baltimore's Jim Johnson leading the world in saves, I voted for the Tampa's Francisco Rodney.  This year is no different. In early August I might have needed to pore over stats carefully to determine who was most deserving, but after the way Koji Uehara finished the season, this one is a no-brainer.  

First some raw numbers:

2013 Walter Johnson Award - AL Pitcher of the Year

My series of Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA) award winners, continues with the American League Walter Johnson Award for Pitcher of the Year.   The past two seasons I selected Detroit's Justin Verlander, one year quite easily, the other one in a closer race.  This year it looks like the award will go to a Tiger again, but one of his teammates instead.  The big question is which one?

Max Scherzer is everyone's obvious choice.  He started off 13-0, deservedly started the all-star game and ended up 21-3 with a 2.90 ERA.  Last time a pitcher was so dominating and didn't win the Cy Young, was probably 1985 when John Tudor also won 21 games, including 10 shutouts and a sub 2 ERA, and lost to some kid named 'Doc'.  (In fact, Tudor didn't get a single first place vote!)

2013 Willie Mays Award - AL Rookie of the Year

After naming Boston manager John Farrell the winner of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA) Connie Mack Award, today I cast my ballot for the BBA's Willie Mays Award.   This is really the Jackie Robinson Award for Rookie of the Year.

Last year Mike Trout lapped the competition and was an unanimous winner receiving all the first place votes by BBA members. This year's rookie crop in the AL isn't quite as deep as last year's.  Nobody is breaking any Jackie Robinson like barriers, there are no Fred Lynn MVP type seasons, or players that captivated a nation like The Bird or Fernandomania in the past.  But there were several good players worthy of mention:

2013 Connie Mack Award - AL Manager of the Year

As a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, I have the privilege of casting a ballot for all the end-of-season awards.  I did the National League ones earlier, and now I'll be doing American League one at a time.  I'll be going in order from the easiest to the toughest. The first one I am announcing this year is the Connie Mack award for Manager of the Year.  (No, it's not named for the Republican Senator from Florida, but this guy).

I had a feeling I knew who the winner would be before the season started.  In my preseason predictions I had some teams that I thought would win quite a few more games than last season, including Kansas City, Minnesota and Boston.  But I only saw one of these teams making the playoffs.  And yes, I may have a slight bias, but that hasn't stopped me from picking Joe Girardi for this same award in 2011 or even Yankee David Robertson over Papelbon for the reliever award in 2011.

National League Award Voting

Now that the regular season is over it’s once again time for my votes for the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA) Awards.  In previousyears I have selected winners in all the American League categories.  This year I will also pick the National League winners.   Check back after the World Series to the BBA site to see who the award winners are

This post will present all of the National League picks with limited commentary.  Between now and the World Series I will post the AL winners, one award at a time with a detailed post and more explanation for each one.

Walter Johnson Award (Pitcher of the Year)

Not a lot of suspense with this one.  Lots of hurlers had seasons that would be deserving of an award in other years including Cliff Lee, Adam Wainwright, Rookie Jose Fernandez (more on him in a minute) and even Matt Harvey until he was injured. But this year’s winner is unquestionably Sandy Koufax.  I mean Clayton Kershaw.

Baseball Bloggers Alliance Award Winners

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance has completed naming its 2012 award winners.

As you'll recall, I made my picks right after the season finished.  There were some easy choices, but I made a few controversial choices. I ignored Jim Johnson's 51 saves, and selected Fernando Rodney for top reliever.  I picked Justin Verlander and his 17 wins for top pitcher while shunning 20 game winners David Price and Jered Weaver.  More egregiously, I ignored Miguel Cabrera's triple crown and selected Mike Trout as player of the year.  I had some very good reasons for doing so as outlined in my posts, but I expected to be in the minority.   Well, I am very pleasantly surprised to see the rest of my BBA brethren (and sistren!), selected the same award winners that I did.  Below are the AL and NL winners of the Alliance, with links to their site where you can see more details on the voting.

Connie Mack Award  (Manager of the Year)

AL: Bob Melvin

NL: Davey Johnson

Willie Mays Award (Top Rookie)

AL: Mike Trout

NL: Bryce Harper

Goose Gossage Award (Top Reliever)

AL: Fernando Rodney

NL: Craig Kimbrel

Walter Johnson Award (Top Pitcher)

AL: Justin Verlander
NL: RA Dickey

Stan Musial Award (Player of the Year)
AL: Mike Trout
NL: Buster Posey

Happy offseason to all my readers.  To get you through your baseball withdrawal, you can now get the great Out of The Park Baseball game for 50% off for the rest of the offseason, through this link.

2012 American League Awards Recap

Over the past week, I have announced my picks for the American League half of the Baseball Blogger's Alliance awards.  The BBA will announce the member's collective choices next week.  Below is a summary of my ballots:  (Click on links for full post with explanations)




Connie Mack Award (Top Manager)
#1: Bob Melvin, Oakland
#2: Buck Showalter, Baltimore
#3: Robin Ventura, Chigaco

Willie Mays Awards (Top Rookie)
#1: Mike Trout
#2: Yoenis Cespedes
#3: Will Middlebrooks

Walter Johnson Award (Top Pitcher)
#1: Justin Verlander
#2: Felix Hernandez
#3: David Price
#4: Jered Weaver
#5: Chris Sale

Goose Gossage Award (Top Reliever)
#1: Fernando Rodney
#2: Jake McGee
#3: Greg Holland

Stan Musial Award (Top Player)
#1: Mike Trout
#2: Robinson Cano
#3: Miguel Cabrera
#4: Adrian Beltre
#5: Justin Verlander
#6: Ben Zobrist
#7: Felix Hernandez
#8: Alex Gordon
#9: Adam Jones
#10: Joe Mauer

2012 AL Stan Musial Award

All week I have been selecting my AL award winners that will go in my ballot for the Baseball Blogger's Alliance year end awards.  They will announce their winners next week on their site.

I have saved the most anticipated and controversial award for last.  This is the Stan Musial Award for Player of the Year.   This ultimately comes down to two guys. Miguel Cabrera who won the Triple Crown and led the Tigers to the playoffs, and Mike Trout who had an unbelievably good season, for a rookie or otherwise. 

2012 AL Goose Gossage Award

The penultimate award I get to vote on for the Baseball Blogger's Alliance year end awards is the American League Goose Gossage award for top reliever.   Once again, a lot of good closers with some eye-popping numbers.  Baltimore's Jim Johnson led the majors in saves with 51. Rafael Soriano got 42 saves after Rivera went on the DL.  Tampa's Fernando Rodney had an ERA of 0.60(!).

There was a time when we thought the closers with the most saves were the best relievers.  This was in the dark ages of baseball statistical enlightenment. Or as it was called at the time, the 1980s (or 1990s).   But I like to look a little deeper.

2012 AL Walter Johnson Award

Yesterday I announced Mike Trout as my pick for winner of the Baseball Blogger's Alliance Willie Mays award for Rookie of the Year in the American League.  That was an extremely easy pick.  Today I tackle the Walter Johnson award for top pitcher.  This one required some more thinking.  There were several deserving candidates, and no clear cut choice.

Among the front runners there was David Price who tied for the league lead in wins with a sparkling 20-5 record and also led with a 2.56 ERA, and Jered Weaver who had the same record with a 2.81 ERA and led the majors in WHIP at 1.02.  And let's not forget Felix Hernandez who only won 13 games due partially to an anemic offense, but had 5 shutouts, an ERA of 3.06 and 223 strikeouts.  Chris Sale and Yu Darvish (just realized I forgot to mention him in my Rookie of the Year post - wouldn't matter he wouldn't beat Trout anyways) had excellent campaigns as well, and I don't want to neglect CC Sabathia who had an average season for him... aka a great season for any other pitcher.  And there were also some relievers with out of this world numbers. Baltimore's Jim Johnson saved 51 games and meanwhile Tampa's Francisco Rodney didn't give up any runs all season.  Ok, he must have given up a couple while I blinked because he has a non-zero ERA, but just barely at an incredible 0.60.

With so many deserving candidates, whose name is this blog going to put for the 2012 American League Walter Johnson Award?

2012 AL Willie Mays Award

Awards week continues.  After naming Oakland's Bob Melvin the winner of BBA's Connie Mack Award, today I get the honour of selecting the American League Willie Mays Award winner for best rookie.

There was a great crop of rookies in the AL this season.  Oakland's Yoenis Cespedes was a big part of the reason the A's surprised the baseball world by winning the AL West.  Chris Carter was another big part.  He only got called up in late June and hit 16 home runs in 67 games.  Boston's Will Middlebrooks got called up in May and was such a hot hitter he forced the Red Sox to trade away perennial all-star Kevin Youkilis. Baltimore called up prospect Manny Machado when they were fighting neck and neck with Tampa for the last wildcard spot. With him in the lineup they pulled away and almost caught the Yankees for the division.  In other seasons any of these players might have been good candidates to win the Rookie of the Year. But who to give it to this year?

2012 AL Connie Mack Award

As a member of the Baseball Blogger's Alliance, I have the privilege of voting for all the end-of-season awards.   The first one I am announcing this year is the Connie Mack for the Manager of the Year.

There were a lot of good candidates this year:
- Buck Showalter took a team that should have been barely .500 based on their runs scored differential, and won 93 games, and had a shot at the AL East division right up to the last day of the season.

- Bob Melvin took an Oakland team that traded away some of their best players in the offseason, and shocked the Rangers to win the AL West division.

-Robin Ventura took over the White Sox from Ozzie Guillen who failed to get them to .500, and had them atop the AL Central until the last week of the season

BBA Awards

As we settle in to watch the playoffs, it's also time to start thinking of the year end awards.  Over the next few days I will  post on this blog my ballot for each of the main awards.  As part of the Baseball Blogger's Alliance, I will be voting on the following awards for the American League:

Connie Mack Award (Best Manager)
Willie Mays Award  (Top Rookie)
Goose Gossage Award (Best Reliever)
Walter Johnson Award (Best Pitcher)
Stan Musial Award (Best Player)

There won't be a lot of suspense for some of these but I expect that there will be some that will generate some discussion and/or controversy.  I will do my best to explain why I made the choices I did in each post.
I will be disclosing one winner each day this week.  Stay tuned.

BBWAA vs. BBA Awards - who chose better?

Now that all major awards have been handed out by the BBWAA (and the Baseball Blogger's Alliance (BBA) had already announced their awards ahead of time), it's time to compare and see how well they matched, and where they differed who had the better selection.  I previously posted the BBA selections, and links to the Boston Chapter's vote as well as my personal input into that vote on the awards tracker post.  Feel free to look through the links there for reasonings behind my picks.   Here, without further commentary, are the final results for each award.  For the most part, the Bloggers' awards match the real ones with a few slight differences.  I would be interested in readers' opinions of whether the BBA totally missed the boat, or if they replaced the BBWAA membership votes and gave it to a bunch of guys (and gals) blogging from their mom's basement, if the real awards would be more meaningful.   Please comment below and/or shoot me a line on twitter @rsn_alberta.

Baseball Bloggers Alliance Awards Tracker

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally. As of this writing, the organization consists of 316 blogs (including yours truly) spanning all 30 major league squads as well as general baseball writing.

The BBA is organized under a similar structure as the Baseball Writers of America, where blogs that follow the same team are combined into “chapters” and only two votes from the chapter on an award are counted.    As a member of the Boston chapter, I am privileged to vote for all the American League awards, and our Chapter president tallies up the votes and submits our combined ballot.

The official website of the BBA is located at baseballbloggersalliance.wordpress.com. The BBA can be found on Twitter by the handle @baseballblogs and by the hashmark #bbba.

This post will have a link to all the awards, showing RSN-Alberta’s ballot, the Boston chapter’s combined ballot, and the BBA award recipient.  I will continuously update this as new winners are announced, so bookmark this page. EDIT: All awards updated now.

Click on the links on the individual awards for the reasoning behind these selections, and to leave any comments.

Connie Mack Award  - Manager of the Year
My ballot
1. Joe Girardi
2. Joe Maddon
3. Ron Washington
Boston Chapter
1. Maddon
2. Jim Leyland
3. Washington
BBA Award Recipient
AL -  Maddon
NL - Kirk Gibson

Willie Mays Award – Rookie of the Year
My ballot
1. Michael Pineda
2. Dustin Ackley
3. Brett Lawrire
Boston Chapter
1. Eric Hosmer
2. Jeremy Hellickson
3. Desmond Jennings
BBA Award Recipients
AL- Hosmer / Hellickson (tie)
NL - Craig Kimbrel


Goose Gossage Award – Reliever of the Year
My ballot
1. David Robertson
2. Jonathan Papelbon
3. Mariano Rivera
Boston Chapter
1. Robertson
2. Papelbon
3. Rivera
BBA Award Recipients
AL - Valverde
NL - Kimbrel

Walter Johnson Award – Pitcher of the Year
My ballot
1. Justin Verlander
2. Jered Weaver
3. CC Sabathia
4. Doug Fister
5. CJ Wilson
Boston Chapter
1. Verlander
2. Sabathia
3. Weaver
4. Dan Haren
5. James Shield
BBA Award Recipients
AL - Justin Verlander
NL - Clayton Kershaw

Stan Musial Award – Player of the Year

My ballot:

1. Jose Bautista

2. Justin Verlander

3. Jacoby Ellsbury

4. Dustin Pedroia

5. Miguel Cabrera

6. Alex Gordon

7. Ian Kinsler

8. Evan Longoria

9. Curtis Granderson

10. Jered Weaver

Boston Chapter

1. Ellsbury

2. Bautista

3. Cabrera

4. Verlander

5. Pedroia

6. Longoria

7. Granderson

8. Robinson Cano

9.(T) Gordon

9.(T) Kinsler

BBA Award Recipients
AL - Jose Bautista
NL - Matt Kemp

Oh yea... Congratulations to the St. Louis Cardinals on culminating a very exciting post-season with their Championship!

BBA Boston Chapter Walter Johnson Award

Later this week, the Baseball Bloggers Alliance will announce the winners of the 2011 Walter Johnson Award given to the best pitcher.  There are some interesting debates going on for the National League candidates, but if the Boston Chapter of the BBA is representative of the rest of the American League voting, there should be no suspense as to who the AL winner will be.   In an unanimous vote, all Boston voting members selected Justin Verlander as the clear winner.   And for very good reasons, as I elaborated when I made by ballot public.  On Thursday the BBA will likely confirm Verlander as the AL award recipient and I look forward to seeing how the membership voted in what should be a much tighter NL race.

BBA Boston Chapter Goose Gossage Award

Now that the BBA has named their Connie Mack and Willie Mays award winners (for manager and rookie of the year), the next announcement will be for the Goose Gossage Award for top reliever.   I had made my picks earlier, giving a rival Yankee the top spot on my ballot.  And it wasn't even for Mr. Enter Sandman himself, but to David Robetson.  Surely not many others would pick a middle reliever, and I certainly never thought that fellow Red Sox bloggers would be so willing to give top honour to a Yankee. So imagine my surprise, when not only did the Boston Chapter also place Robertston #1 on our collective ballot, but matched my picks perfectly giving 2nd spot to Jonathan Papelbon  and the aforementioned Mariano Rivera as the #3 pick.   The BBA will make their announcement for both the AL and NL winners early next week.

BBA Boston Chapter Willie Mays Award

Yesterday I shared the Boston Chapter and BBA's selections for the Connie Mack Award,  and today we will continue the post-season awards with a look at who were the top rookies named.  As a reminder, I picked Seattle's Michael Pineda over teammate Dustin Ackley and the Jays' Brett Lawrie on my Willie Mays award ballot.  I made my case for these players and also explained why I left other favourites such as Eric Hosmer and Jeremy Hellickson off my ballot. Alas, the other members of the Boston Chapter voted differently, giving the award to Hosmer.  Hellickson was second and Desmond Jennings got the 3rd place vote on the Chapter's ballot.  Take a look here for the details of the voting.  This ballot will count towards the BBA's official award, which will be named in the next few days.  I will update this with the final results once they are announced.