Baseball Bloggers Alliance Regular Season Awards

I’m fortunate to maintain membership with the Baseball Bloggers Alliance through my role as senior editor for Yanks Go Yard. One of the cool things the alliance does on a yearly basis is conducting an end of year (regular season) awards ballot. The members are split by American League and National League based on who they write about. So, obviously I am submitting a ballot for the AL awards.

The number in parenthesis is the number of people needed for the ballot to be complete. Once the ballots are tabulated and made official by the BBA, I will provide a link to the results in our HUB.

Here are my votes and a short comment after the ballots. If a Yankee player did not crack the ballot, I provide in the comments who I feel was best on the team in the particular category.

Sometimes Joe Girardi may overthink things, but overall he did a great job keeping the Yankees together through mulitple injuries to top players. (Image:Brad Penner-US PRESSWIRE)

Connie Mack Award – Manager of the Year (3)

Buck Showalter
Bob Melvin
Joe Girardi

This one is very close for me as each manager produced a lot with little, but I feel Buck gets the edge as his team playing in the AL East carries some extra weight and even that is close since the AL West was very competitive this season. If Melvin was to win the real award, his team did win the division, I wouldn’t argue with it. Girardi gets votes for keeping the Yankees together during an injury riddled season and the Bombers never let go of the AL East completely, which says a lot about Girardi’s handling of the team.

Willie Mays Award – Rookie of the Year (3)

Is there a more dynamic player in baseball than Trout? Not even close. It will be interesting to see how his career folds out after such an amazing start. For the Yankees, David Phelps was their rookie of the year. He did virtually anything the Yanks asked of him and did it well. He started, he was a long reliever, he worked in short relief and he started again. I believe

Rafael Soriano did plenty of untucking this season stepping up for the Yankees when Mariano Rivera went down for the season. (Image: Brad Penner-US PRESSWIRE)

Goose Gossage Award – Top Reliever of the Year (3)

My guess is a preseason selection process would have had each of these relievers at the bottom of the list. That’s the role of the closer and why Mariano Rivera’s tenure up until his injury this season is all the more impressive.

Walter Johnson Award – Cy Young Award (5)

Verlander could win this award for the next five years and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least and David Price has finally come into his own as a top-notch starter. CC Sabathia was the Yankees best pitcher in my opinion. It wasn’t his best season, but still was above the rest of the staff.

Robinson Cano may be listed higher on my ballot, but my reasons are justified if looking at his all-around game. (Image:Brad Penner-US PRESSWIRE)

Stan Musial Award – Most Valuable Player (10)

First, I treated this exactly how the MVP is decided, pitchers are allowed to be selected. Listing ten names becomes completely monotonous with the historic season Trout put together. To me, no one came close to his play and despite his team not reaching the playoffs; they would not have been sniffing the opportunity without him. Imagine a player winning the Triple Crown and coming in third place. It probably won’t happen on a lot of ballots (BBA or in the BBWAA voting) as Cabrera will garner plenty of first and second place votes. But, he doesn’t come close to measuring up to Trout and in my opinion Cano had a better all-round season when fielding metrics are (and should be) considered.

So, there you have it. I’m sure there are some choices which can be argued against and if you feel so inclined, I’d love to hear them in the comments below.

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Baseball Bloggers Alliance Regular Season Awards – American League Edition

By Chris Carelli | Oct 12, 2012