Baseball Musings: Internet Baseball Writers Awards

October 29, 2004

Internet Baseball Writers Awards

Christian Ruzich has the results of the first annual Internet Baseball Writers Association (IBWA) awards. My ballot can be found in the extended entry below.

(A more readable version of the results can be found here.)

First off, I was the person who voted for Ryan Drese. I liked Drese's performance all year. He's one of the people who helped improve Texas greatly. It was purely a I like the guy, and I'm going to see he gets some recognition vote.

I disagree with the AL Player of the year voting in that the Yankees trio of Sheffield, Matsui and A-Rod did not get the votes they deserved. They were in the top 3 of win shares most of the year. I don't have a problem with Vlad winning; he had a great season. But I think voters in general should have ranked the three New Yorkers higher.

I was great to see Randy Johnson win the NL Pitcher of the year. This group of writers recognizes that wins don't always equate to pitching excellence. And it also came very close to be a unanimous 1-2 for Santana and Schilling in the AL.

I'm interested in seeing how this voting compares to the BBWA next week. I have a feeling it may disagree in the NL Cy Young race, but maybe the ink and paper writers will suprise us.

David Pinto's ballot:

 
NATIONAL LEAGUE PLAYER OF THE YEAR 
1. Barry Bonds
2. Albert Pujols
3. Scott Rolen
4. J.D. Drew
5. Bobby Abreu
6. Adrian Beltre
7. Randy Johnson
8. Jim Edmonds
9. Mark Loretta
10. Lance Berkman

AMERICAN LEAGUE PLAYER OF THE YEAR 
1. Gary Sheffield
2. Vlad Guerrero
3. Alex Rodriguez
4. Hideki Matsui
5. Johan Santana
6. Manny Ramirez
7. Miguel Tejada
8. Johnny Damon
9. Hank Blalock
10. Ivan Rodriguez

NATIONAL LEAGUE PITCHER OF THE YEAR 
1. Randy Johnson
2. Roger Clemens
3. Carlos Zambrano

AMERICAN LEAGUE PITCHER OF THE YEAR 
1. Johan Santana
2. Curt Schilling
3. Ryan Drese

NATIONAL LEAGUE DEBUT OF THE YEAR 
1. Jason Bay
2. Kalill Greene
3. Akinori Otsuka

AMERICAN LEAGUE DEBUT OF THE YEAR 
1. Bobby Crosby
2. Kevin Youkilis
3. Alex Rios

NATIONAL LEAGUE MANAGER OF THE YEAR 
1. Bobby Cox
2. Jim Tracy
3. Tony La Russa

AMERICAN LEAGUE MANAGER OF THE YEAR 
1. Buck Showalter
2. Mike Scioscia
3. Eric Wedge

NATIONAL LEAGUE EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR 
1. John Schuerholz 
2. Paul DePodesta
3. Gerry Hunsicker

AMERICAN LEAGUE EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR 
1. David Dombrowski 
2. Bill Stoneman
3. Brian Cashman

Posted by David Pinto at 03:03 PM | Awards | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Brian Cashman is your #3 exec of the year? You used your #3 vote on a puppet? A guy who had to cycle through multiple versions of his middle bullpen guys before he ended up with mediocrity.

Posted by: Adam at October 29, 2004 03:08 PM

Theo takes one of the biggest PR risks in baseball history - trading Nomar for two guys most people in Boston have never heard of, and Cabrerra become integral to the WS run, and he doesn't even rate a top 3?

Posted by: Chris at October 29, 2004 03:29 PM

I didn't like the Red Sox trade when it was made, and I still don't like it. I believe the Red Sox won despite of, not because of the trade. Theo and his cohorts also botched the A-Rod deal. Yes, he got Schilling. But based on the results of the regular season (and that's what this vote is based on), I think Cashman did a better job

1. Getting rid of Soriano.

2. Picking up A-Rod.

3. And picking up Sheffield, who led the league in Win Shares.

And Brown and Vazquez were good moves that didn't work out.

Posted by: David Pinto at October 29, 2004 03:56 PM

correct me if i'm wrong, but didn't Steinbrenner pretty much handle the Sheffield negotiations himself? also, Cashman has now saddled the Yankees with contracts that look pretty bad going forward (Brown, Giambi, Jeter, possibly A-Rod). and since when is trading for a 39 year-old pitcher making $15M a "good move"?

Posted by: jamie at October 29, 2004 04:27 PM

Didn't the Yankees want Schilling too? If you are going to hold Theo accountable for deals he did not do, don't you have to do the same for everybody else? Granted, the pursuit wasn't as public, no pursuit of a player was ever as public as Arod (nor should it be) but that doesn't change the end result. For that matter, shouldn't Cashman be accountable for not plucking Manny off the waiver wire? In hindsight, it probably would have been a good move.

Posted by: Chris at October 29, 2004 04:52 PM

Matsui had more win shares than Ramirez, so no, picking Manny up would not have helped the team, unless you were going to play Manny at DH.

I find it funny that the one vote that gets criticized in a third place vote for Exec. of the Year. As Bill Murray would say, who really cares?

Posted by: David Pinto at October 29, 2004 05:14 PM

not to get so nit-picky with your 3rd place choices, but you should probably explain Ryan Drese appearing here as well. His ERA+ wasn't even in the top 10 and the rest of his peripheral numbers other than BB/9 are terrible.

Posted by: jamie at October 29, 2004 05:16 PM

Just consider how long Cashman has survived under Steinbrenner. That merits something, especially since they haven't won since 2000. The Giambi & Jeter contracts were the going market at the time. Texas is picking up a lot of A-Rod's contract too.

Posted by: Robert at October 29, 2004 07:06 PM

Oh, and I've that it's long overdue to name the NL MVP the Barry.

Posted by: Robert at October 29, 2004 07:11 PM

I'm not sure Cabrera and Minky were really "integral" parts of the WS run...

Posted by: Will at October 29, 2004 10:25 PM

One thing I have to say about the Red Sox is that they had the strongest bench I've seen on a team in years. The fact that you had Mientkiewicz (sp?) as your #3 first baseman really says a lot about the depth of the team.

Posted by: Adam Villani at October 30, 2004 02:24 PM

Isn't the use of Win Shares to evaluate Yankee players a little unfair? I mean, Win Shares does not take into account the fact that the Yankees were very lucky by Pythag, and especially adjusted Pythag records from BPro. Not that it is all luck, but some of it is. Suppose you adjusted the Win Shares for luck, and then distributed them, are we still talking about how much better certain Yankees do?

Posted by: Joel W at October 31, 2004 03:36 PM

To Will,
You are not sure Orlando Cabrera and Minky were integral parts of the WS run......what are you smoking. I love Nomars game but he was on one leg, Orlando is a superb fielder and his defense WAS an intergal part of the WS run. Wake Up!

Posted by: Corey_B at November 1, 2004 12:42 PM