Where MLB Writers Got It Right – and Wrong – With Their Awards

Now that the Baseball Writers Association of America has finished up with giving out their annual MLB awards, here are my thoughts on who they picked, and who they should have picked:

AL and NL Managers of the Year: Mike Scioscia and Jim Tracy

The BBWAA voted for Mike Scioscia, Ron Gardenhire, and Joe Girardi as their top three in the AL, and for Jim Tracy, Tony LaRussa, and Joe Torre as the NL top three. I disagree with several of these choices.

Jon Lewin, Faster Times fantasy baseball writer, and myself are members of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, thanks to our work with the Subway Squawkers Yankees-Mets fan blog. And so we got to vote for this category for the BBA’s own version ot the MLB awards.  I voted in the AL Manager of the Year category for Ron Gardenhire, Mike Scioscia, and Joe Girardi, while Jon voted for Jim Tracy, Tony LaRussa and Fredi Gonzalez.

Until the last few weeks of the season, Scioscia would have been the obvious choice in the AL for the way he kept the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim focused after the tragic death of Nick Adenhart. But Ron Gardenhire deserved the award for the way he and the Minnesota Twins came out of nowhere and tied for the division in the last weekend of the season, then beat the Tigers in that thrilling one-game playoff.

Oh, and what’s up with the two MLB sportswriters who gave Tigers manager Jim Leyland a third-place vote. For what, exactly? Presiding over one of the worst regular-season collapses ever?

I have no issue with MLB sportswriters picking Colorado Rockies manager Jim Tracy for the MOY award, and ranking St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa second. I do take issue with their choice of Joe Torre of the Los Angeles Dodgers for third place; either the Phillies’ Charlie Manuel or the Marlins’ Fredi Gonzalez should have won the third spot over Torre. After his team slogged through the second half of the  season, the Dodgers’ manager nearly lost the division title to Tracy’s Colorado Rockies the last weekend of the season. That’s not worthy of any sort of award.

AL and NL Cy Young Awards:  Zack Greinke and Tim Lincecum

As many have noted, this is the year where sabermetrics stats took over old-school ways in picking these award winners – after all, the two winners had a combined total of 31 wins between them, an unthinkable  number just a  few years ago.

I don’t disagree with either of those picks – Greinke and Lincecum were  great choices, even though the San Francisco pitcher does freak me out with how much he totally looks like k.d. lang! But I did notice a few things curious about the process:

* The Tigers’ Justin Verlander getting a first-place vote from –  guess who – a hometown sportswriter.

* Chris Carpenter getting left off the ballot completely in the NL. There’s been a whole to-do about how ESPN.com’s Keith Law and Baseball Prospectus’ Will Carroll omitted Carpenter. Without those two ballots included, Carpenter would have won the award.  And given that these writers are new-school ones,  based on the internet and not at a newspaper, that adds even more of  a buzz to the story.

My problem with the votes was not so much the choices,  but the explanations behind them. Law, who picked Lincecum, Javier Vazquez, and Adam Wainright as  his top three, said:

Carpenter’s innings total was the main reason he ended up off my ballot. He pitched extremely well when on the mound, but not well enough to close the value gap between him and the three pitchers I listed, each of whom threw at least 27 innings more than Carpenter.

Carpenter missed a month due to injury. So did AL MVP Joe Mauer. Yet, according to ESPN.com’s list of their writers’ MLB awards picks,  Law picked Mauer as his MVP choice. Seems a little inconsistent to me.

Will Carroll said he also left Carpenter off his ballot because of the time he  missed due to injury. Carroll, who picked Wainwright, Tim Lincecum, and Dan Haren as his  top three, explained the way he voted:

As much as I agonized over the RotY ballot, my Cy Young ballot went quickly, mostly because I hadn’t been informed that I was going to be voting for it. Jack O’Connell, the longtime secretary-treasurer of the BBWAA checked in with me about my ballot on the due date, giving me hours, not weeks to come to a decision.

I don’t know who to blame, but this is unacceptable. This isn’t a last-minute term paper a grade-school kid is dashing off; this award is supposed to mean something.

Carroll said he “called three players and one scout, asking for their opinions”:

One player hadn’t faced Lincecum—”lucky break,” he said—but he felt that Lincecum looked more hittable. “I’m still convinced that deception is a big part of what Lincecum does,” another said, “and that unless there’s a new wrinkle, people are starting to figure him out. He’s still good, his [stuff] is still good, but comparing him to Wainwright? Wainwright was just a shutdown guy this year.”

Huh? Carroll’s taking the word of somebody who never faced Lincecum? And relying on someone else claiming batters are  starting to figure Lincecum out? Ridiculous. That’s anecdotal  evidence at its worst.

“After turning in my ballot,” Carroll writes, “I sat down with MLB.tv and watched each start for my three vote-getters, plus Jurrjens and Carpenter.”

I appreciate Carroll’s candor. His thought processes here? Not so much. For one thing, I think the time he should have sat down and watched the players was before turning in the ballot, not after.

AL and NL MVPs: Joe Mauer and Albert Pujols

The NL voters got it right in picking Pujols unanimously.  Mauer should have  picked unanimously as well (even this Yankee fan thinks he deserved the award), but Keizo Konishi of The Kyodo News (he covers the Seattle Mariners) gave the Detroit Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera a first-place vote. For what, exactly? Having a .26 blood alcohol level at 6 a.m. on the last weekend of the season? Helping his team lose the division after being in first place all year? No  matter how you slice  it, that vote is a bad choice.

AL and NL Rookies of the Year: Andrew Bailey and Chris Coghlan

No issues here with either of the selections.

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