BBA AL Willie Mays Award Ballot 2011

After a full year of writing nonsense, the Baseball Blogger Alliance has yet to kick us out and still encourages us to vote on stuff. And not just things we know like "how drunk was I last night." Which, of course, the answer is always "very." Up next is the Willie Mays award for rookie of the year.

1. Michael Pineda, Seattle
Pineda looked every bit like 1A to Felix Hernandez's 1 in the Mariners rotation this season. In 171 innings, Pineda threw a 3.74/3.42/3.53 (ERA/FIP/xFIP) pitching line. Pineda also struck out a very impressive 9.11 hitters for every nine innings. If only the Mariners would have kept Doug Fister in that rotation. Is a sentence I never thought I'd write.

2. Dustin Ackley, Seattle
The second Mariner on this ballot was their best hitter. Ackley led the M's with a 2.7 fWAR (Fangraphs Wins Above Replacement) which was good for over half of their total 5.1 fWAR for position players. Oh, I see why they were so terrible now.

3. Eric Hosmer, Kansas City
Hosmer took a hit on his 1.6 fWAR because UZR didn't like his defense at first base. I have no problem throwing that right out the window. He hit 16 home runs and a .293/.334/.465 line. In roughly the same amount of plate appearances, Mark Trumbo hit 29 home runs and will surely get some votes. Even as an Angels fan, I can't vote for his .291 OBP.

Also Rans...

Brett Lawrie, Toronto
Lawrie is the AL rookie of the year. He posted an identical 2.7 fWAR as Ackley in 205 fewer plate appearances. That friends, is insane. If he'd carried a .293/.373/.580 line of a full season instead of just 43 games, Lawrie would be getting MVP votes.

Desmond Jennings, Tampa Bay
Jennings suffered the same fate as Lawrie in time it took to get called up. Jennings did acquire 287 PA's and just hit 10 home runs and a .259/.356/.449 line to go with 20 stolen bases.

Jeremy Hellickson, Tampa Bay
Hellickson could easily win this thing with a 13-10 record and a 2.94 ERA. But his 4.44 FIP (fielding independent pitching) and .223 BABIP (batting average on balls in play) suggest Hellickson's ERA was a product of Tampa's great defense.

BBA Announces Posey, Feliz Win Willie Mays Award

POSEY, FELIZ WIN TWO-MAN RACES FOR WILLIE MAYS AWARD

The battle for the Willie Mays Award, given by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance to the top rookie in each division, turned out to be a two-man affair in both leagues, with Texas Rangers closer Neftali Feliz and San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey finishing solidly ahead of their closest competition, Detroit Tigers outfielder Austin Jackson and Atlanta Braves outfielder Jason Heyward, respectively.

Feliz posted a 2.73 ERA and a 0.88 WHIP while tallying 40 saves and helping Texas into the postseason for the first time since 1999. Feliz only blew three save opportunities while fashioning a 3.94 strikeout to walk ratio.

Feliz garnered eighteen first-place votes and 102 points overall, finishing 22 points ahead of Jackson, who received six nods at the top of the ballot.

Posey did not begin the season in the major leagues, but did so much with his time in San Francisco that voters selected him as the National League’s top rookie. Posey hit .305 and slugged .505 in just 108 games, tallying 18 home runs and 67 RBI after his callup at the end of May. Posey’s offense helped San Francisco make up ground and eventually pass San Diego for the divisional crown.

Posey received 103 total points, including fifteen first-place selections, to outpace Heyward by 17 points. Heyward received ten first-place votes for his work in helping Atlanta secure the National League Wild Card.

The complete voting results are as follows (first place votes in parenthesis):

American League

Neftali Feliz, Texas (18) 102

Austin Jackson, Detroit (6) 78
Danny Valencia, Minnesota 16
Brian Matusz, Baltimore (1) 12
Brennan Boesch, Detroit 11
Wade Davis, Tampa Bay 3
John Jaso, Tampa Bay 3

National League

Buster Posey, San Francisco (15) 103
Jason Heyward, Atlanta (10) 86
Jaime Garcia, St. Louis 20
Starlin Castro, Chicago 7
Ike Davis, New York 7
Gaby Sanchez, Florida (1) 6
Tyler Colvin, Chicago 2
Mike Stanton, Florida 2
Neil Walker, Pittsburgh 2

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 233blogs 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. The blog chapters that are focused on general baseball were allowed two votes as well, which they could use both on the same league or split between the two leagues.

Chapters generally followed one of two methods when casting their ballot. Either representatives of the chapter were given the ballots for voting or a “group ballot” was posted, accounting for both of their votes.

Ballots are posted on the respective blogs and tabulated on a 5-3-1 point scale for first, second and third. In the interest of transparency, links are given below for the ballots. Chapter affiliation is in parenthesis. Those chapters that decided on the group method are noted with an asterisk.

American League

Camden Crazies (Baltimore)*
Boston Red Thoughts (Boston)*
The Tribe Daily (Cleveland)*
Detroit Tigers Scorecard (Detroit)
Switch Hitting Pitchers (Detroit)
One Royal Way (Kansas City)
Seth Speaks (Minnesota)
Twins Target (Minnesota)
Bronx Baseball Daily (New York)*
Contract Year (Oakland)
Rise of the Rays (Tampa Bay)
Tampa Bay Rays News (Tampa Bay)
Baseball Is My Boyfriend (Texas)*
The Blue Jay Hunter (Toronto)
500 Level Fan (Toronto)
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)*
Misc. Baseball (History)*
Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)*
Blogging From The Bleachers (General)*

National League

Prose and Ivy (Chicago)*
Cincinnati Reds Blog (Cincinnati)
Marlin Maniac (Florida)
Marlins Diehards (Florida)
Feeling Dodger Blue (Los Angeles)
Bernie’s Crew (Milwaukee)*
Brewers Bar (Milwaukee)*
The Eddie Kranepool Society (New York)*
Dugger’s Corner (Philadelphia)
Phighting On (Philadelphia)
Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? (Pittsburgh)*
i70 Baseball (St. Louis)
Pitchers Hit Eighth (St. Louis)
Friar Forecast (San Diego)*
22gigantes (San Francisco)*
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)*
Misc. Baseball (History)*
Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)*
Blogging From The Bleachers (General)*
Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf (Miscellaneous)*

Ballots that were unofficial or helped make up their chapter ballot:

Bottom Line Sox (Boston)
Raise the Jolly Roger (Pittsburgh)
The Crazy Crabbers (San Francisco)
Stan Musial’s Stance (St. Louis--unofficial)

Prior Winners

2009: Andrew Bailey, Oakland; Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh

The official website of the BBA is located at www.baseballbloggersalliance.com. The BBA can be found on Twitter by the handle @baseballblogs and by the hashmark #bbba. Members of the BBA may be heard at Blog Talk Radio every Tuesday night with their call-in show, BBA Baseball Talk, which may also be downloaded as a podcast from iTunes. For more information, contact Daniel Shoptaw at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com.

BBA AL Willie Mays Award Ballot

Baseball's award season is upon us and we finally have a vote that counts for something this year. We're proud members of the Baseball Blogger Alliance and they've been kind enough to give us ballots. The only thing the BBWAA ever gave us was a stick of bubble gum from a pack of 1952 Topps baseball cards. It was stale. Today we'll be unveiling our AL Willie Mays ballot for rookie of the year.

1. Austin Jackson
The 2010 AL rookie class pales in comparison to that of the senior circuit. The Tigers' center fielder gets my top spot even though a ridiculous .396 BABIP inflated his stats. He hit .293/.345/.400 for the season while playing a respectable center field (4.2 UZR) good for 3.6 WAR. The BABIP can't be sustainable so the batting average and on base percentage will certainly take a dip in the future but he looks like an everyday center fielder. Which is a lot more than I can say about the rest of the Tigers' lineup aside from Miggy Carbrera.

2. Brian Matusz
Baltimore's rookie left hander pitched well down the stretch and looks like a future front of the rotation starter. He finished the season with a respectable 4.30/4.05/4.51 line (ERA/FIP/xFIP) considering he pitches in baseball's toughest division and is just 23-years-old. The 175.2 innings he pitched was good enough for a 2.7 WAR and will probably anchor a promising young Orioles rotation. But Baltimore players continue to disappoint me, I'm looking at you Adam Jones.

3. Danny Valencia
I imagine that most ballots will include Rangers' closer Neftali Feliz and his saves record for rookies. Danny Valencia probably played over his head at third base for the Twins but he had a big impact with his 322 plate appearances. Valencia hit .311/.351/.448 with 7 home runs. Hey look, his OBP matched his wOBA at .351! What, I like wOBA. The .345 BABIP is wildly lucky but his numbers will most likely come down a little over a full season. Plus his 2.6 WAR trumps that of a relief pitcher (Feliz's 1.8).