Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - Bauxite Votes are counted ...

Over the past two days, Bauxites have been informally invited to cast their "votes" -- for who should win, not necessarily who will win -- in 10 significant MLB award categories for the just-concluded 2010 season. Let's take a look at some of the early returns.

Note: though the vote thread was opened more than a thousand times in its first two days, and there are literally hundreds of registered Bauxites, there were only a few dozen "votes" cast.

In the least surprising return in the history of post-season voting (just look at the outdated site banner still aloft this online magazine's home page) ...

... every single Bauxite who cast a vote for the NL Cy Young Award laid it down for former Blue Jay Roy "Doc" Halladay. Doc also broke up the possibility of a unanimous NL MVP vote, as he grabbed six percent of those votes while Cincinnati 1B Joey Votto went all Albert Pujols on the league and took home the other 94 percent of the vote.

The AL MVP vote was also a two-man race as Josh Hamilton easily outpaced Miggy Cabrera by approximately 79 percent to 21 percent. The real two-man race was in the NL Rookie of the Year ballot, where Jason Heyward received exactly one more vote than Buster Posey, to rack up a 51-49 percent win.

The AL Cy Young showed a clear Bauxite preference for the under-winner, Felix Hernandez, who snared 81 percent of the vote while Cliff Lee, CC Sabathia and Jon Lester received two votes each. The AL Rookie of the Year -- many voters didn't even bother to fill out this spot as several people openly called it a weak class. That class was dominated by Ranger closer Neftali Feliz, who gathered two-thirds of the vote to outdistance Austin Jackson and Brian Matusz , among others.

The rest of the awards voted on went to co-NL Managers of the Year Dusty Baker and Buddy Black, co-AL Managers of the Year Ron Gardenhire and Joe Maddon (who both barely outpaced Toronto's own Cito Gaston), and the Comeback Players of the Year in the NL, where Aubrey Huff nipped Tim Hudson and in the AL where Francisco Liriano clearly beat out Adrian Beltre and a pack of five others that included both Jose Bautista and Vernon Wells.

Whatcha think, Bauxites?

Posted by Mick Doherty on Monday, October 04 2010 @ 11:04 PM EDT.

Bauxite Votes are counted ... | 9 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

Kasi - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 10:07 AM EDT (#223614) #

I do think Brian Matusz is more deserving of the award then Feliz, but Feliz will win it. The question to me was who will win the award, not who deserves it.

Kasi - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 10:10 AM EDT (#223615) #

Excuse me, I meant to say that the other way around. When I commented on the thread the other day I hadn't though of Brian and the season he had. I thought of the A's guy who won it last year and that Feliz had better numbers than him. Feliz will win, but yeah I don't think he is the most deserving. I should have put Matusz as my choice in the other thread, but there is no edit comment. Not like it matters since he won't win.

AWeb - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 10:33 AM EDT (#223617) #

I think those sound about right - the AL MVP might go to Cano (the lack of a meaningful race hurts), the fact that the Tigers imploded (5-19 after the all-star break) hurts Cabrera, and the fact that MVP awards aren't going to players with large amounts of defensive value (Beltre, Longoria) hurts the rest. Hamilton will probably win because of the total lack of a playoff race in the AL this year - there isn't a single player you can point to and say "without him, they don't make the playoffs", which is often a tie-breaker or extra value to the voters.

Any of the potential Cy Young candidates in the AL seem fine to me. Felix might lead the way, but it's not like he had one of the greatest years in history. Sabathia was about this good when he won before, so it's not a total travesty if he wins it again - he was clearly among the best of the league, although the top was cluttered this year with 8-10 guys (Lee, Liriano, Buchholz, Weaver, Price, Lester). It's wouldn't be like Colon winning in 2005...yick.

Jonny German - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 11:30 AM EDT (#223626) #

[Sabathia] was clearly among the best of the league

This is true, but it's also clear that he was not the best in the league.

	IP	GS	WAR 6	ERA+	H/9	HR/9	BB/9	K/9
Felix Hernandez	249.2	34	6.0	174	7.0	0.6	2.5	8.4
Jered Weaver	224.1	34	5.4	135	7.5	0.9	2.2	9.3
CC Sabathia*	237.2	34	5.4	134	7.9	0.8	2.8	7.5
Clay Buchholz	173.2	28	5.4	187	7.4	0.5	3.5	6.2
David Price*	208.2	31	5.3	145	7.3	0.6	3.4	8.1
Jon Lester*	208.0	32	5.0	134	7.2	0.6	3.6	9.7

Thomas - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 05:30 PM EDT (#223673) #

I knew Jered Weaver had a good year, but when you put him in the chart it makes it clear how good he's been. He's probably had the quietest excellent pitching season in the AL.

Mick Doherty - Tuesday, October 05 2010 @ 05:44 PM EDT (#223675) #

the chart really illustrates the unpredictable life of The Ace. Two of the six listed are opposing each other in Game 1 of the ALDS while the other four -- including two teammates! -- are living playoff-free lives ...

Glevin - Wednesday, October 06 2010 @ 03:41 AM EDT (#223704) #

"Felix might lead the way, but it's not like he had one of the greatest years in history. Sabathia was about this good when he won before, so it's not a total travesty if he wins it again - he was clearly among the best of the league, although the top was cluttered this year with 8-10 guys (Lee, Liriano, Buchholz, Weaver, Price, Lester)."

I don't really get all overwhelming votes for Felix this year. He had a terrific year, but he also played in the best park for pitchers in the league , in the division with the worst offenses (and even when you remove Seattle, it was terrible) for the best defensive team in baseball. So, yes, if Felix had pitched for Boston or Tampa, he'd have a bunch more wins, but his ERA would also have been a lot higher. (For example, Sabthia's home park's park factor was 106 and Hernandez's was 93. Seattle's defense is given a +76 by the Hardball Times, Jon Lester and Clay Bucholtz received a -53 from their defense. Hernandez had 17 starts against teams that scored less than 4.25 runs a game, Lester, for example, had 10 such starts.) Hernandez had horrific run support, but other than that received excellent benefits from his team (park, division, and team defense). I'd vote for a 13-game winner if he were clearly the best pitcher, but I don't think he was clearly the best.

Jonny German - Wednesday, October 06 2010 @ 09:55 AM EDT (#223708) #

Hernandez had horrific run support, but other than that received excellent benefits from his team (park, division, and team defense).

Park: Felix leads Sabathia 174 to 134 in ERA+

Team defence: Felix leads Sabathia 3.04 to 3.58 in FIP and 3.26 to 3.80 in xFIP

I don't know of a metric that tries to correct for strength of schedule, but it would have to be a rather huge disparity in favour of Sabathia in order to make up for the fact that every other advanced metric says Felix was clearly better.

Jonny German - Wednesday, October 06 2010 @ 10:23 AM EDT (#223711) #

If I'm going to make this my hobby horse I may as well go all out, right?

Strength of schedule:

Felix made 34 starts against teams that collectively scored 24,758 runs. Thus 4.49 runs per game was the average offence he faced.

CC made 34 starts against teams that collectively scored 23,679 runs. Thus 4.30 runs per game was the average offence he faced.

Interesting notes:

Felix faced the best offence in the majors (NYY) three times and pitched 26 innings (1 inning short of 3 complete games!) with 1 run allowed on 16 hits and 8 walks, striking out 31.

CC faced the "Oh-yeah-they're-in-the-East-too" Orioles 6 times. So much for the strength of his division! He faced the worst-in-league Mariners 3 times for a total of 9 starts against the 2 worst offences in the league.

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