2008 End of Season Awards

Starting with your completely non-controversial comeback players of the year, Cliff Lee and Brad Lidge.

Pujols
Lincecum
Soto
Who the fuck cares?

Mauer
Lee
Longoria
Maddon

Agreed

Halladay/Lee, Mauer, Longoria, Maddon

Santana, Pujols, Soto, González

My vote for Lincecum over Santana is based on nothing more than excitement at watching Lincecum pitch. Statistically they are even.

I could just as easily give the edge to Lincecum for the Ks and wow factor (he's easily my favorite player to watch), but Santana pitched in the tougher division/had more pressure.

With a far better defense behind him though.

One dude who isn't getting enough mentions is Rich Harden. CC Sabathia was better down the stretch, but not by a lot.

Not with an average of just under six innings a start.

(Fair point, Alex.)

(And 12 starts.)

Yeah, but he sure was good. I just hope he gets on some ballots.

Mauer for me too, but Pedroia is a reasonable choice, maybe even ahead of Sizemore.

I won't argue against anyone picking Lincecum, but I take Johan.

Otherwise agree w/ Alex, but I'd take Piniella as NL Mgr just cuz I read this on a Mets blog re Gonzalezand find it very stupid...yet OTM:

Most teams are like those classless Marlins who couldn’t find the decentcy to leave the field quickly ago the Mets could begin their closing ceremony. That is a direct reflection on manager Freddi Gonzalez who is in charge of a team that if it were disbanded today, no one would give a rat’s ass about. What Freddi and his little band of douchebags need to remember is at some point the Marlins will be dumping them as they make too much money especially Freddi Gonzalez who will be fired eventually and I bet he will calling Omar Minaya for a job.

http://www.kranepoolsociety.com/2008/09/29/it-was-the-worst-of-times-and-the-best-of-times/

Is that a comment or the actual post?

the post. (the guy also thinks Olney is OTM re "Sugarpants" Wright)

lol that dude is hurt deep in the butt

I don't think that post is OTM at all.

that guy's a big fan of white dudes, it seems

fwiw tbs cut the fuck out real early, but what did the marlins do besides shake hands with each other as every team does and maybe savor a few minutes on the field after their last game? i don't see how it's a direct reflection on freddi gonzalez who by all means is a pretty respectful dude? dunno how that is otm, i'd go with deleriously butthurt at being eliminated @ home for the 2nd year by a team "that if it were disbanded no one would care about"

Were the Marlins lingering on the field any longer than the average visiting team after a victory? It was the end of the season, too...

xpost

xxp: uh well, so is Wright if the NY Post re his prez pick is accurate.

The Marlins came out to scoop up Shea dirt from around home plate. THAT's a little much.

ANYWAY... do you think Pujols will be dissed by the BBRAA?

i don't know how you could vote for anyone besides freddi for nl manager? pinella and torre have huge ass payrolls + you should just elimnate torre anyway bcuz they weren't making the playoffs w/o manny + what talents did pinella bring exactly to a veteran team that has been together for years

The Marlins came out to scoop up Shea dirt from around home plate. THAT's a little much.

i understand that the mets fans were probably salty bcuz of the circumstances but i don't recall yankees fans saying this about the orioles players

Look, my section on Sunday was full of idiots like that blogger, I don't feel like defending any of it, but no non-Met player should want Shea Stadium dirt.

BACK ON TOPIC (I've suffered enough)

was there a concern that they might run out of dirt?

was the dirt supply limited?

did mets officials require any marlin who slid into a base to carefully brush the dirt off their uniform into a sterile storage bag?

if only there was some kind of award for dirt

I think it very likely, although Howard's ridiculously low BA and high SO totals might give the writers cause to reconsider their RBI RBI RBI mantra.

I won't argue against anyone picking Lincecum, but I take Johan.

Could you quantify the weight you accorded homerism in your decision?

ok i'll bite

andy and alex, why mauer over morneau?

Mauer's value relative to other catchers is much much higher than Morneau's to other firstbasemen basically.

Also 40 pts of OBP is generally more important than 50 pts of SLG.

xp: they call it "positional scarcity," it seems.

Could you quantify the weight you accorded homerism in your decision?

Tiebreaker.

I think I've posted about this before, probably in 2006, but catching a season's worth of baseball -- considering the physical and mental demands relative to those of other positions -- while producing that level of offense blows my mind. It's not just that he won the batting title; he was second only to Milton Bradley in OBP.

Plus the guy isn't Mike Piazza or anything. He's a good defensive catcher.

Which is not equal to being the best slugging catcher of all time, however.

Yeah gimpy arm or no, I'll take Mike Piazza's career over Joe Mauer's. Sorry if that was unclear from that post.

no, I was just thinking that the Twins would trade Mauer's defense for Piazza-caliber if he could hit 35-40 out.

Yeah if Justin Morneau hit like Mike Piazza, he'd probably deserve the MVP.

I'm pretty sure I'd want some dirt if I played in the last ever game in a historic ballpark.

Yeah but what if you played the last game ever in Shea Stadium.

I can see hating it if you had to attend a game there, but I think it looks cool.

also the marlins are a pretty young team so they probably got caught up in the hype of the thing. i'm pretty sure it wasn't luis gonzalez and matt traenor out there scooping dirt

ROY:
Soto, Longoria

MVP
Pujols, Pedroia (I think I'm finally buying into his MVP hype)

CY
Lincecum, Halladay

Yeah, Lincecum and Santana are virtually even, but I'm with Alex on this one. I just like Lincecum's story a bit better.

Halladay is *clearly* the AL CY IMO -- they're very close in VORP, but Halladay made nearly half his starts against BOS/NYY/TAM, faced superior NL teams in interleague play, pitched more innings, and has all those CGs. Lee beat Kansas City five times.

I didnt know Cy was for story, maybe PEN shd vote on it.

One argument against Halladay is that while the quality of competition he faced was higher, he also faced with one of the league's best defenses behind him whereas Lee had one of the worst.

Also as was pointed out in Keith Law's chat today, Lee beat KC five times, but KC beat left handed pitching like a drum this year so it's not quite as a easy feat as all that.

And when two pitchers are as close as Santana and Lincecum, I think it's fine to either a) call the award a tie or b) pick one or the other based on whatever silly criteria you want.

Halladay and Lee are close too btw.

BJames winshares for SP:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstats/main/index.php?view=winshares&linesToDisplay=50&season_filter%5B0%5D=2008&league_filter%5B0%5D=All&pos_filter%5B0%5D=SP&Submit=Submit&orderBy=pitch&direction=DESC&page=1

I didnt know Cy was for story, maybe PEN shd vote on it.

― Dr Morbius,

ILE Epitaph!

Shasta suddenly a fan of Win Shares.

yes, if "suddenly" = 4 years ago.

so you obv know Wright > Chipper then.

AL IBAs -- Pedroia nips Mauer (I had em reversed), Lee over Halladay, Longoria and Maddon in a walk.

http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=8281

I meant to have A-Rod about 6th but "forgot." (which got Markakis my 10th-place vote, I think)

Interesting that Mauer got most 1st-place votes. And Kinsler at 13th despite the injury (I had him higher).

Can't argue with the results. Pedroia was my #2 as well.

NL: Pujols, Lincecum, Soto, Lou.

Yeah no shocks there. Let's see how badly the writers fuck the vote up.

Lord

C Yadier Molina
1B Adrian Gonzalez
2B Brandon Phillips
3B David Wright
SS Jimmy Rollins
OF Nate McLouth
OF Carlos Beltran
OF Shane Victorino
P Greg Maddux

IBA voters showed Halladay no respect and let's face it, there's an anti-Canada bias in that. This is one case where the BBWAA might be less shortsighted.

Is Maddux really still the best fielding pitcher in baseball or do people just vote for him completely out of habit?

Still pretty good according to FRAR/FRAA (I guess the Zone Rating based stuff doesn't cover pitchers.)

lol @ nate mclouth gold glove

here's the american league ones apparently

P - MIKE MUSSINA - YANKEES
C - JOE MAUER - TWINS
1ST - CARLOS PENA - RAYS
2ND - DUSTIN PEDROIA - RED SOX
3RD - ADRIAN BELTRE - MARINERS
SS - MICHAEL YOUNG - RANGERS
OF - TORII HUNTER - ANGELS
OF - GRADY SIZEMORE - INDIANS
OF - ICHIRO SUZUKI - MARINERS

it's good that hitting .300 finally got Yadi a glove. No one would know it outside the Lou but Troy friggin Glaus actually deserved one too.

why not a-rod for mvp? he out-vorped the whole league

Lincecum no problem; but Johan 3rd -- yeah, whaddya expect?

2008 NL Cy Young Award Voting

Pitcher, Club 1st 2nd 3rd Points

Tim Lincecum, SF 23 7 1 137
Brandon Webb, ARI 4 15 8 73
Johan Santana, NYM 4 8 11 55
Brad Lidge, PHI 1 7 10
CC Sabathia, MIL 1 1 1 9
Ryan Dempster, CHC 4 4

golden gloves=yeesh

no markakis, no credibility.

Even more surprising: Sabathia was just a fringe factor in the voting.

WAIT 'TIL MVP

Brad Lidge 1st place voter can toss my salad often.

http://images.chron.com/photos/2008/11/11/13919705/342xSectionMain.jpg

Tim Lincecum was the best thing about baseball in 2008!

lincecumdumpsters

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/11/SPHO142DD9.DTL

Told that his name might not be treasured among Giants fans today, Chris De Luca, national baseball writer of the Chicago Sun-Times, said, "I'm glad I don't have season tickets any more."

...

De Luca stood by his ballot. Voters are allowed to pick the top three pitchers and De Luca had Brandon Webb first, Brad Lidge second and Johan Santana third.

"It's funny because toward the end of the season, in early September, I was thinking Lincecum would be in my top two," De Luca said. "I thought Webb's victories (22) stood out to me more than anything, and Lincecum didn't have the victories. Twenty victories was a big deal. We had a stretch there where no one was hitting 20.

"Santana (undefeated after June 28) stood out because there was so much pressure not just being in New York, but to be who he is. With Lidge being a perfect closer (41-for-41 in save chances), that was a tough pick for me, not to pick him No. 1."

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/sf_gate_shea_one_voter_left_out_lincecum/

Today on PTI, Michael Wilbon and Rick Reilly agreed that Tim Lincecum should not have won the Cy Young. Wilbon went so far as to say Lincecum should've finished no better than fifth. He stated Brandon Webb should have won because (paraphrased) "nobody wins 20 games any more."

It was much much worse than that -- they treated Lincecum like a joke, that you had to be smoking something to vote him #1 (yes, they said this), and said that the voters needed to take Bill James' number (yes, they mentioned him) off of cell phones because picking either Sabathia, Webb, or Lidge (Santana's name was never mentioned) couldn't have been any more obvious.

eugh

Glad I didn't see that.

explains a lot about how they manage to screw up so many awards

wait, is PTI that show that usually has the Kornheiser idiot and some other guy discussing "headlines" for 2 mins each? why wd you watch that?

Masochism?

kei igawa has been named topps' triple-a left-handed pitcher of the year

strong work

one dingaling voted for Gardenhire over Maddon as Mgr of Year.

Player 1st 2nd 3rd Total

Lee 24 4 -- 132
Halladay 4 15 6 71
Fr.Rodriguez 7 11 32

Others receiving votes: Daisuke Matsuzaka, Red Sox, 10; Mariano Rivera, Yankees, 3; Mike Mussina, Yankees, 2; Ervin Santana, Angels, 2.

Did Bernie Lincicome vote for Tim Lincecum?

Lincecum is the first asian Cy Young winner I think...

re: PTI, I didn't actually watch it, but I listened to the audio podcast after hearing about their comments on this thread. Kornheiser usually says intelligent things, but "nobody wins 20 games anymore" is right up Wilbon's alley.

Anyway, what's with the voters not screwing up this year? Not buying into the half-season hype and ranking Sabathia 5th (which of course means most of them -- rightly -- wouldn't vote for a guy who pitched only half a season when there were plenty of other qualified candidates)? No first place votes for K-Rod having his worst season? Webb at #2 in Cy Young voting is bad, but that's about it.

we will shortly find out if this trend of picking the most deserving player will continue...

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3708596

pujols wins!

ry-ho finishes second, ryan braun 3rd.

This looks like it will be the first year since 1987 in which none of the MVPs and Cy Young winners played for a first-place team.

^progress

someone voted pujols 7th place o_O

some philly d-bag i'm sure

96 pts for Delgado (vs 10 Beltran, 3 Reyes) also nuts.

OWNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this quote is p funny too:

"I wasn't surprised at all," Pujols said. "You have to consider everything. You have to put all the numbers together."

Pujols is such a dick.

Pujols is such a has earned the right to be a dick.

also lol, didn't know that 3 writers gave NL ROY points to Edinson Volquez even tho he was 30 innings over rookie limit.

Ludwick wuz robbed

Sabathia earned more MVP support than Cy Young support!

LOL at Lidge's two first place votes.

that MVP/Cy Young distinction is standard BBWAA horseshit.

I may think the Lidge votes are more defensible than Howard's.

Among MLB relievers, Lidge's 26.5 VORP trailed that of not-so-popular MVP candidates such as Scott Downs, Grant Balfour, and Hong Chih-Kuo. I guess one could argue that Howard hit like an MVP from June onward, "when it counts".

hey, it's the NL.

NEW YORK -- Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia has won the American League Most Valuable Player award.

Pedroia got 16 of the 28 first-place votes and easily beat out Minnesota Twins slugger Justin Morneau.

Pedroia became the first AL second baseman to win the award since Nellie Fox in 1959.

Five players drew first-place votes. Record-setting closer Francisco Rodriguez got one of them and finished sixth overall.

Wow, kind of shocked.

http://www.baseballwriters.org/awards/2008/2008_AL_mvp.html

Bartlett got a 5th place vote?!

That's one more than Sizemore got.

BBWAA has got to change that color scheme.

Pedroia no surprise; legit choice + Red Sox media obsession. Youkilis in 3rd is funniest East Coast bias-related placement.

(Kinsler getting one lousy point kind of a bummer, even w/ injury)

Lifetime ban (MLB, NCAA, HS, American Legion, Pony League, Koufax, Little League, coach-pitch, tee ball, wiffle ball, MLB 2K8, Bases Loaded, RBI Baseball, Strat-O-Matic, magnet baseball board game, spitball-pencil baseball) for the Bartlett voter, please.

it must've been a joke. or a dare. or pehaps the voter was having some kind of diabetic fit at the time?

shouldnt a-rod have ranked higher? he led the league in VORP

yes, except I will defend ppl being sick of an athlete in this instance

hah

how the hell does that morneau dude keep getting so many votes btw

canadians

racism

I think he had a better year than when he won! but Mauer was more valuable.

higher WARP this year, but lower VORP; .315 EQA in 06 vs .314 this year; doesnt crack top ten AL vorp in either season

don't forget HR Derby champ!

I was rooting for Quentin, not surprised at the results though.

Your stat of the day:

MVP Awards, career

Manny Ramirez 0
David Ortiz 0
Dustin Pedroia 1

racism

― mayor jingleberries, Tuesday, November 18, 2008 3:41 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

defense wins championships

and awards

fuck everyone that voted for K-Rod

that mvp tally is like revenge of the red states.

holy shit!!

At this defining moment, Change has come to the BBWAA.

ESPN displayed the top five (or was it six?) vote getters' WARP last night -- though the anchor sounded like his eyes were rolling as he explained the term.

this was the first time that the eight BBRAA award winners matched the eight Internet Baseball Awards winners.

Looks like four new people will be voting for these awards next year:

Yahoo's Kevin Kaduk reports that the Baseball Writers Association of America added four Internet writers today: Will Carroll, Christina Kahrl, Rob Neyer, and Keith Law.

WHOA, paradigm shift!!!

C Kahrl:

"This is obviously a great day for Baseball Prospectus as an organization, and a reason for personal reflection and excitement alike. This development provides us with a major obligation to not simply enjoy the benefits of our inclusion, not simply to reflect that Baseball Prospectus was and is worthy of inclusion, but that its ongoing coverage of the game will become that much better."