As a second-year member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, I am honored to cast my votes for the American League (AL) 2010 regular season awards.
The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was founded in 2009 and has 222 blogs covering all major league teams and various other aspects of baseball, as well as blogs and sites that are affiliated as Friends of the BBA. The official website of the BBA is located at www.baseballbloggersalliance.com.
The Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA) recently announced the renaming of their annual postseason awards to comply with the wishes of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA), thereby avoiding confusion between the two organizations. This allowed the BBA an opportunity to recognize some of the legendary greats of the game, naming their highest honors after them.
“Earlier in the year, the BBA reached an agreement with former Yankee reliever Goose Gossage to name our newest award, recognizing the best relief pitcher in each league, after him,” said Daniel Shoptaw, founder and president of the Alliance. “It only seemed fitting, then, that we rename the rest of our awards after other legends of the game.”
The five awards are given to a player in each league: The Connie Mack Award, given to the top manager; the Willie Mays Award, for the top rookie; the Goose Gossage award, mentioned above; the Walter Johnson Award, which would be analogous to the BBWAA’s Cy Young Award; and the Stan Musial Award, awarded to the most valuable player in each league.
According to Shoptaw, “These names are synonymous with quality, achievement, and dedication. These names have not only stood the test of time, but have been strengthened by it.”
The following are my votes as they will be cast in 2010 for each respective award. I have included thoughts and an explanation as to my reasoning. You may or may not agree, but feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
Willie Mays Award (rookie of the year)
Austin Jackson and Brennan Boesch inserted their selves as a household name in Detroit in 2010 and these two guys land at #2 and #3 in my list for AL Rookie of the Year voting.
But I think it’s pretty clear that Texas’ Neftali Perez is the American League Rookie of the Year for this season. There isn’t a large crop of AL players to choose from in 2010 and Perez broke the Rangers rookie saves record. He is also in the discussion for Closer of the Year.
At the beginning of March, I heard about Perez as a rookie who could be drafted late in most fantasy baseball drafts. The fact that he was so dominant in strikeouts immediately put him on my radar and six months later, he has nearly 40 saves and a Texas-sized reputation for late inning dominance. Congratulations, Neftali Perez on a great season – you get my vote for the Willie Mays Award.
Connie Mack Award (manager of the year)
Oh, Joe Maddon. How much I dislike this guy and it’s all because he’s in the AL East division. I wish he were still in Anaheim because I think he is frustratingly-good and a thorn for the Red Sox. Maddon is strategic and wins simply by executing game plans at a high level. Tampa may the AL East crown, beating out two model franchises on a much smaller budget, and doing it with nearly-zero fan attendance.
Maybe it helps that no one is paying attention down there, but Maddon has led his Rays to 47 wins since the Fourth of July while managing the youngest lineup in the AL.
He has successfully navigated through Boston and the Bronx and mediated the BJ Upton/Evan Longoria feud when it looked like Tampa was about to corkscrew into disaster. I don’t see a better coach than him right now.
Maddon’s team has more wins against AL East opponents than anyone else in the division and the Rays are also the best road team in all of Major League Baseball.
Ron Washington and Ron Gardenhire had great seasons, but this year, my vote for the Connie Mack Award goes to Joe Maddon.
Walter Johnson Award (Cy Young)
If Felix Hernandez were on any of the American League playoff teams, he would be a god-like figure to baseball. Instead, he is wasting away in mediocrity with the Seattle Mariners and their unsupportive franchise.
Felix is the best pitcher in baseball who must carry an asterisk on his win totals because his team has offensive erectile dysfunction. No one on that offense is worth a lick outside the ageless Ichiro Suzuki and the highly-rated Justin Smoak. Instead of Mark Teixeira’s, Evan Longoria’s, Josh Hamilton’s or any other run-creator in baseball, Felix gets Jose Lopez and Casey Kotchman. Now there’s a veritable dynamic duo who will carry the best pitcher in baseball to a 12-win season!
He is the victim of his own terrible franchise.
When he gets 0-2 runs of support: 2-10, 2.84 ERA. 7.5 K/9, 3.0 K/BB, .223 BA, .636 OPS
When he gets 3-5 runs of support: 7-2, 2.12 ERA, 8.6 K/9, 3.5 K/BB, .221 BA, .577 OPS
When he gets 6+ runs of support: 3-0, 0.76 ERA, 11.8 K/9, 3.9 K/BB, .127 BA, .397 OPS
I don’t care about the arguments for Jon Lester, David Price or CC Sabathia. Felix Hernandez is the best pitcher in the American League this year and gets my vote for the Walter Johnson Award.
Goose Gossage Award (top reliever)
Joakim Soria is my pick for the Goose Gossage Award in 2010. Tampa’s Rafael Soriano is a very close second, but Soria was worth a little more than $1 million dollars more than Soriano.
It’s been since July 28 that Soria allowed a run and his ERA currently sits at 1.53. He had a better xERA, Runs Above Replacement as a Reliever based on FIP and had the same counting stats in 2010 as Soriano. For me, it’s an easy pick.
Stan Musial Award (MVP)
To me, the Stan Musial Award should go to a guy who dominated offensively and defensively, while carrying his teams on his shoulders for a season.
2010’s candidates can be argued as Adrian Beltre, Josh Hamilton and Miguel Cabrera. I think it’s really hard to pick this one, and while the baseball SABR-community squabbles over the Cy Young debate, I think the real challenge lies with the MVP.
Without Adrian Beltre, the Red Sox might have been an 80-win team in 2010. That is an exaggeration, but without him, there would have been no one left to carry the load. There was no Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia or Jacoby Ellsbury for a large part of the season and Josh Beckett and John Lackey underperformed all season.
The captain, Jason Varitek, was shelved and the Red Sox trotted out replacement players, while Beltre scratched out a 7.0 WAR season. Without Beltre, I think this team implodes and crumbles under the combination of expectation and mediocre performances. The fact that the Red Sox team stayed in the mix until late is a giant reflection on the system in place, but also that of Beltre’s performance.
Texas’ Josh Hamilton had another video game-esque offensive season, but he barely reached 500 ABs and I think the Texas Rangers were markedly better from a pitching-perspective, while the offense stayed healthy (save Nelson Cruz). Hamilton would need to be a no-brainer in order to consider him as MVP at 500 ABs, but I don’t think he is, and he will not receive my vote in 2010.
Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera has also racked up a large sum of counting stats and a WAR that hovers around 6.5, but his defense is bad and defense happens to be a strength for both Beltre and Hamilton. Compared to theose two players, the Tigers first baseman comes up well-short with the glove.
Cabrera’s offensive numbers are at the top of the AL, but he is too close to Jose Bautista in my eyes in terms of relative value. I wouldn’t vote for Bautista, so for that reason Cabrera will not receive my vote this year.
Adrian Beltre is my choice in 2010 for the Stan Musial Award – the American League MVP.
Conclusion
So those are my 2010 picks. I will be interested to see how the voting turns out this year, as I have a strong feeling that Sabathia is going to win the Cy Young by virtue of playing for the Yankees. I hope I am wrong, but the writers love wins and division titles. New York can provide both to Sabathia in 2010.
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