The big hardware for MLB’s individual honors is being handed out over the next 8 days. Gold Glove winners were already announced (with Dustin Pedroia earning his first) and now comes: Rookie of the Year Awards (Nov 10); NL Cy Young (Nov 11); Managers of the Year (November 12); AL Cy Young (Nov 13); NL MVP (Nov 17) and AL MVP (Nov 18). I have already made my personal picks for whom I would have voted for, but this post is a place to discuss who you think should win, who you think will win, and what you think of the results. I'm sticking by my prediction that the Twins' Justin Morneau will walk away with the AL MVP, but am keeping my fingers crossed that one of our two Sox candidates can come up with a win so Boston can end 2008 with a victory of some sort.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
MLB's Individual Awards
The big hardware for MLB’s individual honors is being handed out over the next 8 days. Gold Glove winners were already announced (with Dustin Pedroia earning his first) and now comes: Rookie of the Year Awards (Nov 10); NL Cy Young (Nov 11); Managers of the Year (November 12); AL Cy Young (Nov 13); NL MVP (Nov 17) and AL MVP (Nov 18). I have already made my personal picks for whom I would have voted for, but this post is a place to discuss who you think should win, who you think will win, and what you think of the results. I'm sticking by my prediction that the Twins' Justin Morneau will walk away with the AL MVP, but am keeping my fingers crossed that one of our two Sox candidates can come up with a win so Boston can end 2008 with a victory of some sort.
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Rookie of the Year Awards given out today. The winners are no shock:
AL - Evan Longoria, TB
NL - Geovany Soto, CHC
Voting results....
American League
1. Longoria
2. A.Ramirez, CWS
3. JACOBY ELLSBURY, BOSTON
National League
1. Soto
2. J.Votto, Cin
3. J.Jurrjens, Atl
Ellsbury got 0 1st, 7 2nd, 5 3rd (out of 28 votes). Very surprising that 16 of 28 left him off their ballots altogether.
Voters for the NL Cy Young Award agree with my pick.
Winner - Tim Lincecum, SF
Voting results....
1. Lincecum
2. B.Wedd, Ari
3. J.Santana, NYM
Don't disagree with the voting one bit....or the "others" receiving votes: Lidge, Sabathia, Dempster.
Do they drag out these awards to keep interest in baseball in a time when not much other basball stuff is going on?
I agree 100% that they drag these awards out. Hockey does it the best BY FAR by having a night to hand out all the hardware with the 3 finalists in attendance. I'd love to see something like that for all sports.
However, I disagree that there is nothing happening. Maybe it's just for baseball nerds like me, but I LOVE this stretch: Free agency begins on the 14th, usually some good trades (or rumors at least), and speculating about what your team will do next. I love it!
Manager of the Year Awards given out today. AL was an obvious pick. NL was no real surprise either.
AL Winner - Joe Maddon, TB
NL Winner - Lou Piniella, CHC
AL voting results...
1. Maddon
2. R.Gardenhire, MIN
3. M.Scocia, LAA
4. TERRY FRANCONA, BOSTON
NL voting results...
1. L.Piniella, CHC
2. C.Manuel, PHI
3. F.Gonzalez, FLA
Was disappointed that Francona didn't finish higher and that my NL pick, Cecil Cooper of the Astros, got just 3 total points and barely beat out Dale Sveum who was a manager for about 10 days!
I really like the free agency too. But casual fans probably dont find much interest in the business aspects of any sport.
Voters for the AL Cy Young Award agree with my pick.
Winner - Cliff Lee, Cle
Voting results....
1. Lee
2. R.Halladay, Tor
3. F.Rodriguez, LAA
4. DAISUKE MATSUZAKA, BOSTON
I had the same top two on my ballot, but I gave my 3rd place vote to Jon Lester who did not receive a single vote for 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Disappointing. I think most that watched the Sox this year would agree he had a better year than Dice-K. Oh well.
NL MVP....
Winner = Albert Pujols, STL
Voting...
1. Pujols
2. R.Howard, Phi
3. R.Braun, Mil
4. M.Ramirez, LAD
5. L.Berkman, Hou
I still find it amazing that Manny could finish 4th in the MVP voting in a league that he didn't join until August. Although I disagree with the logic, I do think it speaks volumes about just how much he dominated over there.
Also...
CC Sabathia, another trade deadline cross over from the AL finished 6th.
If they give it to that Cunt from MN I will be less than thrilled.
See yesterdays Post on the subject - To long to post here.
http://arsensox.blogspot.com/2008/11/red-sox-like-sands-through-hour-glass.html
sweet language labradoodle. According to boston.com Pedroia has won the AL MV with 317 points. He received 16 first place votes.
I have a good poll question - After Pedroia started off very slow as a rookie, how many people thought the Red Sox called him up to early?
Now that he has won the rookie of the year, a gold glove, a silver slugger, and an MVP I guess it was a good thing that most of the fans were not coaching the Sox last year.
Note to all agents and lawyers drafting contracts for their clients, put in an fing mvp clause. There is absolutely no reason for not including an MVP clause. It borders on malpractice to have his lawyer not include an MVP clause.
When negotiating the contract, the respective team wont argue against inclusion of an MVP clause because, whether this is a 1st round pick or a 100th round draft pick, if the player wins an MVP, the team would be happy to pay out the 100k bonus.
I am shocked and blown away that his lawyers/ agent did not thing about this in advance. In fact, I find it shocking that an MVP clause is not mandatory in every contract. It is not as though this would be something that would be difficult to include in negotiations of EVERY player in MLB.
This is why the players need good agents!!!
Excellent point Dave. Scott Boras might be the happiest man in baseball right now...he's probably working on getting The Destroya into his camp now. Guys were getting bonuses for finishing in the top 5 and the MVP gets nothing? Weird.
This from the AP:
"Pedroia, who made just $457,000 last season, didn't have an MVP bonus provision in his contract. Morneau earned $75,000 and Mauer, Youkilis and Pena got $25,000 each."
That's right, Carlos Pena, who finished 9th, got $25k. His agent? Scott Boras.
Pedroia MVP and Youk number 3 in the voting. When was the last time the Sox had 2 guys in the top 5 of the MVP voting?
Guess it shows that as valuable as Manny was in Boston, he was never considered to be most valuable.
Off the top of my head my guess would be 1986, Clemens (1) and Rice (3).
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