All overcome with the sugar-buzz from leftover Halloween candy, SBNation has this noon announced the recipients of its first two postseason awards, its Rookies of the Year in the American and National Leagues:
| National League | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hanley Ramirez | 9 | 8 | 5 | 74 |
| Ryan Zimmerman | 11 | 5 | 2 | 72 |
| Dan Uggla | 3 | 6 | 8 | 41 |
| Josh Johnson | 2 | 2 | 2 | 18 |
| Cla Meredith | 2 | - | - | 10 |
| Prince Fielder | - | 2 | 1 | 7 |
| Takashi Saito | - | 2 | 1 | 7 |
| Anibal Sanchez | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Josh Willingham | - | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Josh Barfield | - | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Matt Cain | - | - | 2 | 2 |
| Andre Ethier | - | - | 1 | 1 |
| American League | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Justin Verlander | 11 | 3 | 2 | 66 |
| Jonathan Papelbon | 3 | 5 | 5 | 35 |
| Francisco Liriano | 3 | 5 | 5 | 35 |
| Jered Weaver | - | 3 | 5 | 14 |
| Kenji Johjima | 1 | 1 | - | 8 |
| Esteban German | - | 1 | - | 3 |
| Howie Kendrick | - | - | 1 | 1 |
Points were allotted using the familiar 5-3-1 method.
Congratulations are of course due to Mssrs. Verlander and Ramirez, and my lack of humility just won't allow me to miss mention that I had actually pegged Ramirez on my own ballot.
But the real interesting part is how our selections might agree or disagree with the recipients eventually selected by the Baseball Writers. I think the idea behind these awards is that us bloggers might be just a little more statistically savvy, and just a tad more open to the newer ways of evaluating performance than the staid and plodding newspaper writers, and while we won't know until November 13th when the BBWA announces their Rookies, I think that Ramirez over Zimmerman might be the first race in which us Young Turks disagree with our much more established brethren.
After all, Zimmerman had more homers and more RBI than Ramirez, while Hanley had a (much) higher VORP, and it doesn't get much more old school/new school than that.
I think Ramirez was the right call, but expect the Baseball Writers to tag Zimmerman.
More Award Madness from SBNation in the days to come:
- November 2nd - AL and NL Managers of the Year
- November 3rd - AL and NL Cy Young
- November 6th - AL MVP
- November7th - NL MVP