Awards | The Baseball Zealot

2009 Player of the Year: Albert Pujols

pujols The Sporting News announced St. Louis Cardinals Albert Pujols as the winner of the Player of the Year award for the 2nd consecutive year as determined by a vote of a panel of 338 major league players, he was a unanimous selection.

For the 9th straight year, since arriving in the big leagues, Albert has batted over .300, with more than 30 home runs, and over 100 RBIs. He also won the award in 2003. This year Pujols hit 47 homers and scored 122 times, both tops in the NL, in addition to batting .327 and driving in 135, all this with an elbow which required postseason surgery. He joins these other Cardinals who have won the award, 1944 Marty Marion, 1946 & 1951 Stan Musial, 1964 Ken Boyer, 1971 Joe Torre, and 1974 Lou Brock.

2009 Managers of the Year: Mike Scioscia & Jim Tracy

scoscia The Sporting News has announced the winners of the Manager of the Year award as Mike Scioscia of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Colorado Rockies Jim Tracy.

This was the 10th year Mike Scioscia has been the Angels skipper, averaging exactly 90 wins per year. He is a two time Manager of the Year award winner, winning the award in 2002, when his ballclub won the World Series. Although LAA won three less games (97) than the previous year (100, his only 100 win season), Scioscia had one of his best seasons at the helm. Early in the year an up & coming rookie pitcher Nick Adenhart was tragically killed in an automobile accident, Scioscia’s steadying influence kept the Angels focused. But the biggest thing Mike brings to the table as manager is “Angels baseball”, it starts in the minors, and everybody in the organization knows what’s expected of them. If somebody doesn’t do their job, they’re are pulled out of the ballgame, and reminded of what’s expected. It’s a throwback brand of ball, where the little things are expected, little things produce big results.

Jim Tracy took over from Clint Hurdle as the Rockies manager on May 29th. In only 116 games at the helm, he turned Colorado around, with a 74-42 record, winning a wild card playoff berth. Under Tracy the team lost their first three games in Houston, and he came in that next day and said, “Guys, I want to just let you guys play the game. But if you all force me to come out here, I’m going to come out here”. Jim Tracy has experienced success before as a big league skipper, in 2004 he guided the Los Angeles Dodgers to a first place finish with 93 victories.

Both Scioscia & Tracy are the one and only winners of the Manager of the Year award in their ballclubs history.

2009 Pitchers of the Year: Zack Greinke & Tim Lincecum

greinke_f The Sporting News has named their 2009 Pitcher of the Year award winners, as selected by a panel of 31 major league general managers and assistant GMs. This years winners are Zack Greinke of the Kansas City Royals and the San Francisco Giants Tim Lincecum.

Greinke was the AL ERA leader with a sparkling 2.16 ERA, a 16-8 record, he struckout 242 & walked only 51 batters (nearly 200 more strikeouts than bases on balls), surrendering only 11 longballs, on just 195 hits in 229′ innings. In this era of the relief pitcher, Zack completed six of his 33 starts, including three shutouts. He joins Bret Saberhagen as the only other Royals hurler to win the award, Bret won it in 1985 & 1989.

Tim Lincecum won the Pitcher of the Year award for the 2nd straight year, finishing with a 15-7 record, 261 strikeouts, only 68 walks (again, nearly 200 more strikeouts than bases on balls). Tim only allowed 168 hits, including only 10 longballs, in 225′ innings. Lincecum posted 2 shutouts, completing four of 32 starts. The Freak joins these other Giants who have won the award, 1944 Bill Voiselle, 1959 Sam Jones, 1967 Mike McCormick, 1973 Ron Bryant, 1978 Vida Blue, and 2004 Jason Schmidt.

2009 Rookies of the Year: Gordon Beckham & J.A. Happ

Dodgers Sox Spring Baseball The Sporting News has announced the winners of the 2009 Rookie of the Year Gordon Beckham of the White Sox and J.A. Happ of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Beckham was called to Chicago on June 4th, playing thirdbase everyday, he ended up batting .270 with 28 doubles, 14 home runs, and 63 RBIs, in 103 games. The most remarkable thing was that Gordon was a SS at the University of Georgia last year when he hit more homers than anyone in NCAA Division I. So he was learning a new position in the big leagues, and learn it he did, I predict several Gold Gloves in his future. Other White Sox Rookies of the Year are 1951 Minnie Minoso, 1956 Luis Aparicio, 1963 Pete Ward & Gary Peters, 1966 Tommie Agee, 1969 Carlos May, 1983 Ron Kittle, and 1985 Ozzie Guillen.

Happ was 12-4 with a 2.93 ERA for Philadelphia, appearing out of the bullpen until late May when the young lefthander moved into the rotation. I remember seeing his changeup in spring training in Clearwater, FL, and thinking how much he reminded me of Phillies ace Cole Hamels. He pitched two shutouts, while striking out 119 batters in 166 innings. Other Phillies Rookies of the Year are 1946 Del Ennis, 1948 Richie Ashburn, 1957 Jack Sanford, 1964 Dick Allen, 1980 Lonnie Smith, 1984 Juan Samuel, 1997 Scott Rolen, and 2005 Ryan Howard.

TSN names Pittsburgh as top sports city

The Sporting News named Pittsburgh as "The Best Sports City”. TSN has a pretty good case:

The world champion Steelers were kicking off their title defense against the Titans. The world champion Penguins were down in D.C., Stanley Cup in tow, to meet the president. Native son Dave Wannstedt was at practice on the South Side, preparing his unbeaten Pitt football team for the weekend’s win at Buffalo.

…oh yeah, the Pirates, too

Looking at the local scene, Chicago (who was lumped in with Evanston) came in fourth. My locale, Champaign-Urbana, ended up #84 solely on the basis of University of Illinois sports (we don’t have much else after that),

Here is TSN’s full list of 399 cities.

Cubs retire #31: Get two for one

The question is: Why wasn’t it done before?

The Chicago Cubs will retire the uniform number 31 to honor pitchers Ferguson Jenkins and Greg Maddux. It was the fifth number retired by the Cubs. The other numbers are (chronologically) #14 Ernie Banks, #26 Billy Williams, #10 Ron Santo, and #23 Ryne Sandberg.

No doubt both pitchers are very worthy of this honor. Interestingly, both served the Cubs in two separate stints. Jenkins was 167-132 with a 3.20 ERA in 401 appearances including six 20-win seasons.

Maddux won 133 games for the Cubs and his first Cy Young came when he was still with the Cubs.

Both have a great place in Cub history and it’s about time for Jenkins, in my opinion.

The Bartlett Vote

There’s already been plenty of discussion all around why Evan Grant left Red Sox secondbaseman Dustin Pedroia off his ballot. He’s been getting plenty of flak for that already.

But another ballot move that’s been deemed questionable (perhaps more so at least in my opinion), is the Tampa Bay chapter of the BBWAA giving Rays shortstop Jason Bartlett a fifth place vote on the MVP ballot.

Bartlett, who hardly played a full season at 128 games and 454 at-bats, didn’t wow anyone at the plate. He batted .286 with a .329 OBP and .361 slugging percentage. He had no power (1 homerun) and little production (48 runs and 37 rbis).

Opinions are mixed on Rays blogs but they range from “too much is being made of the Bartlett vote” to “what was he thinking?”

I don’t live and die with the Rays and I couldn’t tell you what got them to the World Series. And I won’t bore you by comparing teammates Evan Longoria’s or Carlos Pena’s stats.

But that said, Jason Bartlett for MVP?? Really?

Witch hunt begins for Pedroia non-voter

As you heard, Dustin Pedroia of the Red Sox won the 2008 AL MVP vote comfortably.

Fortunately, he won the vote comfortably enough that he didn’t need the vote of Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News who left Dustin Pedroia’s name off the ballot altogether.

Here was his ballot:

Kevin Youkilis
Francisco Rodriguez
Justin Morneau
Josh Hamilton
Carlos Quentin
Alex Rodriguez
Cliff Lee
Joe Mauer
Grady Sizemore
Carlos Pena

Grant is pretty red-faced about the whole thing. In between answering emails and phone calls, he’s posted his explanation/apology on his blog.

Did I perhaps get too “cute” at the bottom of the ballot? Yeah, probably. Was that a mistake? Yeah, probably. Was it a mistake to leave him out of the top five; in retrospect, yeah, it was. My colleagues all thought he belonged in the top five. My opinion on this one was obviously wrong. What I’m happiest about is that if my analysis was so wrong, at least it did not cost Pedroia the MVP award. I can assure you I give the MVP vote an awful lot of time. In this case, perhaps I gave it too much time and overanalyzed, particularly at the bottom of the ballot. In retrospect, it’s hard to argue that Pedroia wasn’t one of the 10 best players in the league.

He over analyzed… putting too much weight on stats like BA in scoring position etc.

Despite all that, while some Red Sox fans are understanding that it was just a stupid mistake, others are calling for Grant’s head. I’ve seen commenters calling Grant an idiot, a moron and yes, the prerequisite requesting that his voting privileges be taken away.

Meh, it’s just the American League.

Update: Grant goes on The Big Show to explain his non-vote.

The interview can be heard here. (thanks College Baseball Blog)

Captain Obvious here but maybe it would have been better if had just not gone on the air. Just my opinion.

All-time worst MVPs list? I don’t think so.

In light of the upcoming MVP awards to be announced this week, Scott McCoy who covers the Texas Rangers for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, has come out with his list of Baseball’s Top 5 worst MVPs.

In typical Texas Ranger fashion, the author seems to focus on hitting (particularly power) for his baseline and doesn’t consider context when making his choices.

Seven of his ten choices (he had five honorable mentions) were middle infielders and in most cases (1944 Marty Marion, 1959 Nellie Fox, 1995 Barry Larkin) were excellent with the glove.

Some while not exhibiting great stats by today’s measures, were playing in hitting-depressed eras (again Fox and Marion). Others yet displayed leadership beyond the statistics (1931 Frankie Frisch, 1925 Roger Peckinpaugh) or played a good part in leading their team to championships (Fox once more, Frisch).

Would I have made those same MVP choices given the chance? I’m not sure. But “Worst MVPs” seems a bit harsh.

I couldn’t let that one go.

Sluggin’ Zambrano

The Cubs’ Carlos Zambrano won the Silver slugger award.

I wrote earlier this year comparing pitchers’ hitting and it wasn’t close. The rbis tightened up but Big Z is the clear leader.

Cnt Player              BA   PA Year Age
+----+-----------------+-----+---+----+---+
    1 Carlos Zambrano    .337  85 2008  27 
    2 Micah Owings       .304  62 2008  25 
    3 Brandon Backe      .277  56 2008  30 
    4 Adam Wainwright    .267  65 2008  26 
    5 Jake Peavy         .265  58 2008  27 
    6 Mark Hendrickson   .257  37 2008  34 
    7 Braden Looper      .254  80 2008  33 
    8 C.C. Sabathia      .235  53 2008  27 
    9 Aaron Cook         .233  78 2008  29 
   10 Manny Parra        .226  58 2008  25

 Cnt Player            RBI Year Age
+----+-----------------+---+----+---+
    1 Carlos Zambrano    14 2008  27 
    2 Brandon Webb       11 2008  29 
    3 Jason Marquis      10 2008  29 
    4 C.C. Sabathia       7 2008  27 
    5 Manny Parra         6 2008  25 
    6 Danny Haren         6 2008  27 
    7 Jorge de la Rosa    6 2008  27 
    8 Bronson Arroyo      6 2008  31 
    9 Micah Owings        6 2008  25 
   10 Adam Wainwright     6 2008  26

Followup: Some trivia… Only two teams had more than one pitcher hit a homerun for them in 2008. The San Diego Padres’ Cha Seung Baek and Chris Young both hit one each. For the Chicago Cubs, Zambrano contributed four dingers while teammate Jason Marquis hit out two. Here’s the complete list for 2008:

Cnt Player            HR  PA Year Age
+----+-----------------+--+---+----+---+
    1 Carlos Zambrano    4  85 2008  27 
    2 Brandon Backe      2  56 2008  30 
    3 C.C. Sabathia      2  53 2008  27 
    4 Jason Marquis      2  66 2008  29 
    5 Matt Cain          2  72 2008  23 
    6 Micah Owings       1  62 2008  25 
    7 Bronson Arroyo     1  74 2008  31 
    8 Cha Seung Baek     1  38 2008  28 
    9 Chris Young        1  36 2008  29 
   10 Adam Wainwright    1  65 2008  26