Corey Kluber and Clayton Kershaw win Walter Johnson Award

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA) has announced that Corey Kluber barely edged out Felix Hernandez for the American League Walter Johnson Award and that Clayton Kershaw won every vote for the National League award.

The official ballot of the General Chapter of the BBA (made up of writers who write generally about baseball and not about one particular team or area) had King Felix just barely ahead of Kluber. The BBA tallied all the ballots from the various chapters to come up with the winners of the award for 2014 which celebrates the best pitchers in each league.

Kershaw was also an overwhelming winner on the General Chapter's ballot with every first place vote except one. Take note of the fact that both winners share the exact same initials!

For the official announcement, press release and voting results, click the link in the first paragraph of this post to the official BBA site.

Congratulations to both Corey Kluber and Clayton Kershaw for their terrific seasons which earned these awards.

Dellin Betances and Craig Kimbrel earn Goose Gossage Awards

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA) has announced today that Dellin Betances of the New York Yankees has won the American League Goose Gossage Award as the year's best relief pitcher and Craig Kimbrel of the Atlanta Braves has earned his fourth consecutive nod as the best relief pitcher of the National League for 2014. See the link for the details.

The General Chapter of the BBA is made up of generalist baseball bloggers (not focusing on one team or one area) and that chapter's official ballot had Betances beat by one vote by Wade Davis, but agreed to the Kimbrel selection. That ballot was compiled with all of the other chapters of the BBA to come up with the eventual winners.

The General Chapter salutes both Betances and Kimbrel for their fine seasons in 2014.

BBA General Chapter Official Ballot - Finis

Last week, the General Chapter of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance compiled its official ballot for the Willie Mays Award and Connie Mack Award that goes respectively to the best rookies in each league and the best managers. Today, the chapter finishes the job and selects a ballot for the Goose Gossage Award, the Walter Johnson Award and the Stan Musial Award that goes to the best relievers, best pitchers and the most valuable players respectively in each league. The ballot will then be added to others from around the alliance to come up with the winners of the BBA awards.

This is my third or fourth year compiling these as president of the General Chapter. Our chapter is thus named because our chapter writers cover the sport generally and not just one team or one area of expertise. It's a great group of writers and it has been my honor to read and feature these writers. This ballot will be my last official act as chapter president as I have stepped down. It is time for someone else with fresher ideas and more energy to take over.

All three of these award votes were interesting. Well, they were for the most part. The Stan Musial Award in the American League and the Walter Johnson Award in the National League were duh votes and there was no doubt of the outcome. The rest were like the Wild West with votes all over the place and some real close races.

So let's get to the ballot! The Goose Gossage Award portion of the ballot requires the top three places. The Walter Johnson Award requires five places and the Stan Musial requires ten. Let's start with the Goose Gossage Award:

American League:

1. Wade Davis - 30 pts
2. Dellin Betances - 29 pts
3. Greg Holland - 19 pts

Others in order: Zach Britton (11), Sean Doolittle (8), Jake McGee (5), Andrew Miller (4), Fernando Rodney (3), Huston Street (2)

That was a very close race! Betances had one more first place vote but Davis was on more ballots.

National League:

1. Craig Kimbrel  - 36 pts.
2. Aroldis Chapman - 31 pts
3. Kenley Jansen - 9 pts

Others in order: Tony Watson (8), Jonathan Papelbon (6), Mark Melancon (5), Drew Storen and Tyler Clippard (3), Trevor Rosenthal and Steve Cishek (2) and Hector Rondon (1).

The Walter Johnson Award

National League:

1. Clayton Kershaw - 83 pts.
2. Adam Wainwright - 53 pts.
3. Johnny Cueto - 46 pts.
4. Jordan Zimmermann - 24 pts.
5. Stephen Strasburg - 12 pts.

Others in order: Madison Bumgarner (11), Cole Hamels (8), Jake Arrieta (7), Doug Fister (5), Zack Greinke (3).

Clayton Kershaw got a first place vote from every writer except one who voted him third.

American League

1. Felix Hernandez - 81 pts
2. Corey Kluber - 79 pts.
3. Chris Sale - 42 pts
4. Jon Lester - 21 pts.
5. David Price - 14 pts.

Others in order: Phil Hughes (12), Max Scherzer (8), Dallas Keuchel (5), Garrett Richards (2), Sonny Gray (1).

Both King Felix and Kluber were on every ballot. Hernandez received more first place votes.

The Stan Musial Award

American League

1. Mike Trout - 150 pts   Received every first place vote!
2. Michael Brantley - 91 pts
3. Jose Bautista - 90 pts
4. Jose Abreu - 67 pts
5. Victor Martinez - 66 pts
6. Jose Altuve - 57 pts
7. Robinson Cano - 38 pts
8. Alex Gordon - 33 pts
9. Miguel Cabrera - 29 pts
10. Felix Hernandez - 23 pts

The rest in order of finish: Nelson Cruz, Adrian Beltre, Corey Kluber, Ian Kinsler, Jose Reyes, Adam Jones, Chris Sale, Edwin Encarnacion, Kyle Seager, David Price, Garrett Richards, Max Scherzer.

National League

1. Andrew McCutchen - 156 pts
2. Giancarlo Stanton - 132 pts
3. Clayton Kershaw - 109 pts
4. Jonathan Lucroy - 87 pts
5. Anthony Rendon - 71 pts
6. Buster Posey - 68 pts
7. Yasiel Puig - 34 pts
8. Anthony Rizzo, 29 pts
9. Carlos Gomez - 29 pts
10. Josh Harrison - 28 pts

Others with votes: Johnny Cueto, Jayson Werth, Jhonny Peralta, Jordan Zimmermann, Madison Bumgarner, Jason Heyward, Russell Martin, Stephen Strasburg, Justin Morneau, Troy Tulowitzki, Matt Carpenter, Adrian Gonzalez, Devon Mesoraco, Paul Goldschmidt, Denard Span and Craig Kimbrel.

Kershaw received six first place votes but was left off of five ballots.

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance will announce the winners of the Goose Gossage Award on October 20, the Walter Johnson Awards on October 22 and the Stan Musial Awards on October 24.

Much thanks to all of our writers who participated.

Jose Abreu and Jacob deGrom win BBA Willie Mays Awards

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance recently announced the winners of their Willie Mays Awards for 2014. After votes were compiled by alliance members, Jose Abreu was the runaway winner in the American League and Jacob deGrom was the winner in the National League. For full details and the press release, go here.

Hurdle Wins Second Consecutive Connie Mack Award

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance announced today that Clint Hurdle and Buck Showalter have won the alliance's Connie Mack Awards for their respective leagues.

The final results for the entire BBA membership matches the ballot presented by the General Chapter three days ago. As the heading indicates, the award is Hurdle's second consecutive nod.

The full press release with all the results can be found at the alliance's home site linked above.

BBA Connie Mack Awards - General Chapter Ballot

The General Chapter of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance is one of the largest chapters in the alliance. And most of the chapter took part in the first two of our awards, The Connie Mack Award for the best manager of the year in each of the American and National Leagues and the Willie Mays Award for the best rookies in each league. Each member of the General Chapter voted a top three for each award. Those results were weighted with the most points going for a first place vote and then tabulated for the official chapter ballot which will go toward allowing the BBA as a whole to select this year's recipients. First up is the Connie Mack Award.

As several of our chapter members observed, picking the best manager each season is a slippery slope. Ultimately, it is the players who play and either perform or do not. For example, Bruce Bochy seems to be on the every other year plan of success. Was he all that great when he won World Series titles in 2010 and 2012 and then stunk in 2011 and 2013? Is he back to being great in 2014?

Interestingly, Bochy has not won the baseball writers' version of this award since 1996 when he took the Padres to a first place division win in San Diego. Two years later (even then it was every other year), he won the National League Pennant and took his Padres to the World Series and did not win any awards.

I have written here several times that judging a manager seems impossible. You can't go by results. You cannot go by hearsay. You cannot even go by whether he was fired or not. One of our chapter members obstained because of this difficulty.

But the rest of our writers muddled through and picked a top three in each league.

National League:

1. Clint Hurdle - 330 pts
2. Bruce Bochy - 290 pits
3. Matt Williams - 180 pts

Bochy received more first place vote but Hurdle was listed on more ballots to just overcome Bochy's total. Other managers receiving votes in order of finish: Mike Matheny, Don Mattingly, Terry Collins, Ron Roenicke, Bud Black  and Rick Renteria.

American League:

1. Buck Showalter - 470 pts
2. Mike Scioscia - 300 pts
3. Lloyd McClendon 160 pts

It was not close in the American League. Showalter had the most first place votes and was on the most ballots. Other AL managers getting votes in order of their finish: Ned Yost, Brad Ausmus, Joe Girardi, Terry Francona and Bob Melvin.

Much thanks to all the writers for participating in this process.

BBA Willie Mays Award - General Chapter Ballot

The General Chapter members of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance participated in selecting our chapter's ballot for the Willie Mays Award, which goes to the best rookies in the American and National League for 2014. The General Chapter's ballot will then be added to the rest of the chapters to come up with the official Baseball Bloggers Alliance winners for each category. The Willie Mays Award, like the Connie Mack Award will be announced next week.

The general perception of our generalist writers was that the American League had a strong class of rookies while the National League had a very weak class. Even so, each league produced a clear cut favorite among our voters. Each chapter member voted for his or her top three and the top choice was weighted the highest with the second place votes weighted lower and so forth.

One difficulty facing our voters was that the rookie class included players that played in "major" leagues in other countries before coming to the MLB to play. Such candidates draw concern about their "rookie" status.

And our ballot is:

American League:

1. Jose Abreu - 650 pts
2. Dellin Betances - 140 pts
3. Collin McHugh / Masahiro Tanaka - 130 pts.

Abreu blew away the field after his season as one of the premier offensive stars in the Americna League in 2014. The rest of the field in order of their finish was: Kevin Kiermaier, Matt Shoemaker, Yordano Ventura, Danny Santana, George Springer, Marcus Stroman, Nick Castellanos.

National League:

1. Jacob deGrom - 590 pts
2. Billy Hamilton - 360 pts
3. Joe Panik - 70 pts

deGrom was on nearly every ballot and had the most first place votes by far. Hamilton was on nearly every ballot but only had one first place vote. One other first place vote went to Joe Panik. The rest of the field in order of their finish: Kolten Wong, Ender Inciarte, Kyle Hendricks, Travis d'Arnaud, and David Buchanan.

Much thanks to all the chapter members who voted.

BBA Post Season Awards 2013

Every year, the membership of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance votes for the BBA's versions of the post season awards. This is an Internet version of the awards given by the BBWAA with similar categories containing different names for the awards. I have already given you my manager choices here and here. What follows is the rest of my ballot.

The Willie Mays Award is the award for the top rookie of the season. My votes:

• National League - Yasiel Puig (Dodgers). This one was really difficult. Baseball Prospectus and Fangraphs.com both rated Puig as being more valuable than Jose Fernandez of the Marlins. But Baseball-reference.com rated Fernandez much higher. It is a bit of a fallacy that the Dodgers took off as soon as Puig showed up. In fact, the team was 7-10 in his first seventeen games. If I could pick a tie, I would pick them both. But since I must choose one, I will go with Puig.
• American League - In the junior circuit, the pick came down between Wil Myers and David Lough. Both were rated similarly, but Lough's value came mostly from his defense and base running. The defensive stats are still troublesome for me, so my pick is Myers.

The Goose Gossage Award goes to the top relief pitcher of the season. My votes:

• National League - I do not base my picks on saves, but on overall value, WPA and other factors. In the end, Craig Kimbrel, Kenley Jansen and Trevor Rosenthal were all right there. Jansen had the better WPA and clutch scores while Kimbrel had the higher RE24. Rosenthal had the best FIP. I don't think you can go wrong with any of the three, but I am choosing Craig Kimbrel as my winner.
• American League - This comes down to a two-horse race between Greg Holland and Koji Uehara. Both had amazing seasons. Uehara had the better ERA, but Holland the better FIP. Uehara beat Holland by 30 points in WHIP. Holland comes out on top in WPA and Clutch, but Uehara came out on top in RE24. I have to go with Koji Uehara as my winner, though I could support Holland too.

The Walter Johnson Award goes to the top pitcher of the season. My votes:

• National League - There is no discussion. There is the one and only Clayton Kershaw.
• American League - Those in the discussion include Max Scherzer, his teammate, Anibal Sanchez, Yu Darvish and Felix Hernandez. The clear winner for me is Max Scherzer and his win-loss record is the least important of the reasons why.

The Stan Musial Award goes to the top player in each league. My votes.

• National League - My order of finish was: 1. Andrew McCutchen, 2. Matt Carpenter, 3. Carlos Gomez. 4. Paul Goldschmidt. McCutchen is my vote.
• American League - This award says, "top player," and not, "MVP," That being the case, Mike Trout was the top player in all of baseball, never mind just the American League. There is nobody close to him.

So those are my votes. The results will be released just after the World Series concludes.