Category Archives: BBA Post Season Awards
BBA Names Arizona’s Gibson, Tampa Bay’s Maddon Top Managers
Top Blogger Organization Awards Connie Mack Award For 2011
Arizona Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson and Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon were named the 2011 Connie Mack Award winners today by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. The Connie Mack Award recognizes those considered the top manager for the season.
Gibson took over an Arizona team that finished last in the National League West in 2010 and led them to a divisional title in his first year on the job. Gibson’s Diamondbacks led all year-long and finished a comfortable eight games ahead of defending World Champion San Francisco to move on to the postseason stage. Voting was done before the Diamondbacks lost to the Milwaukee Brewers in five games in the National League Divisional Series.
Gibson was a unanimous winner, scoring the top slot on all 21 ballots cast by the portion of the membership that voted on the National League award. Ron Roenicke, whose Brewers defeated Gibson’s squad, finished second in the balloting, while St. Louis Cardinal manager Tony La Russa finished third.
Maddon was rewarded after leading his team to the largest September rally in history, leading his Rays from nine games back in the wild card race to passing up the Boston Red Sox on the last day. As in the National League, voting did not take into account the Rays falling to the Texas Rangers in four games in the American League Divisional Series.
Maddon received the top billing on 22 of the 25 ballots cast for the American League voters, easily outpacing Detroit’s Jim Leyland and Texas Ranger manager Ron Washington. Washington garnered the three first place votes that did not go to Maddon.
The complete voting results are as follows (first place votes in parenthesis):
American League
Joe Maddon, Tampa Bay (22) 113
Jim Leyland, Detroit 48
Ron Washington, Texas (3) 37
Mike Scioscia, Los Angeles of Anaheim 13
Joe Girardi, New York 9
Manny Acta, Cleveland 5
John Farrell, Toronto 1
National League
Kirk Gibson, Arizona (21) 105
Ron Roenicke, Milwaukee 39
Tony La Russa, St. Louis 16
Charlie Manuel, Philadelphia 13
Clint Hurdle, Pittsburgh 7
Terry Collins, New York 5
Bruce Bochy, San Francisco 3
Fredi Gonzalez, Atlanta 1
The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally. As of this writing, the organization consists of 316 blogs spanning all 30 major league squads as well as general baseball writing.
The BBA is organized under a similar structure as the Baseball Writers of America, where blogs that follow the same team are combined into “chapters” and only two votes from the chapter on an award are counted. The blog chapters that are focused on general baseball were allowed two votes as well, which they could use both on the same league or split between the two leagues.
Chapters generally followed one of two methods when casting their ballot. Either representatives of the chapter were given the ballots for voting or a “group ballot” was posted, accounting for both of their votes.
Notably, though the Alliance’s awards come out well before their official counterparts, the BBA selections have matched those of the Baseball Writers of America in all but two instances in the past two years. This, of course, does not include the Goose Gossage Award that is exclusive to the BBA.
Ballots are posted on the respective blogs and for this award, were tabulated on a 5-3-1 point scale for first through third place. In the interest of transparency, links are given below for the ballots. Chapter affiliation is in parenthesis. Those chapters that decided on the group method are noted with an asterisk.
American League
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)
Baltimore Sports and Life (Baltimore)
Baseball Is My Boyfriend (Texas)*
Baseball North (Toronto)
Boston Red Thoughts (Boston)*
Contract Year (Oakland)*
500 Level Fan (Toronto)
The Flagrant Fan (General)
Kings of Kauffman (Kansas City)*
Misc. Baseball (History)
Monkey With A Halo (Los Angeles of Anaheim)
Motor City Bengals (Detroit)
North Dakota Twins Fan (Minnesota)
Old English D (Detroit)
The Rays Rant (Tampa Bay)
Rise of the Rays (Tampa Bay)
Seattle Mariners Musings (Seattle)
The Tribe Daily (Cleveland)*
Twins Trivia (Minnesota)
Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)
National League
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)
Appy Astros (Houston)
Blog Red Machine (Cincinnati)
Cincinnati Reds Blog (Cincinnati)
Dugger Sports (Philadelphia)
The Eddie Kranepool Society (New York)*
The Flagrant Fan (General)
I70 Baseball (St. Louis)
Left Coast Bias (San Diego)
Misc. Baseball (History)
On The Outside Corner (St. Louis)
Padres Trail (San Diego)
Prose and Ivy (Chicago)*
Raise The Jolly Roger (Pittsburgh)
Rockies Woman (Colorado)
22 Gigantes (San Francisco)*
Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)
Prior Winners:
2010: Ron Washington, Texas; Bud Black, San Diego
2009: Mike Scioscia, Los Angeles of Anaheim; Jim Tracy, Colorado
The official website of the BBA is located at baseballbloggersalliance.wordpress.com. The BBA can be found on Twitter by the handle @baseballblogs and by the hashmark #bbba. For more information, contact Daniel Shoptaw at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com.
Kemp Unanimous Pick For NL Stan Musial Award
There were some outstanding performances this year in Major League Baseball. However, one clearly stood out from the pack.
Los Angeles Dodger outfielder Matt Kemp was named the National League Stan Musial Award winner for 2011 in voting held by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. Kemp received all 15 first place votes and completely dominated the rest of the voting field like he did in putting up almost a 40 HR/40 SB season for the Dodgers this year.
Coming in a distant second was Milwaukee outfielder Ryan Braun, who garnered most of the second place votes from the group. Braun’s teammate, first baseman Prince Fielder, came in third.
Interestingly enough, even though Los Angeles pitcher Clayton Kershaw outpointed Philadelphia hurler Roy Halladay in the BBA’s Walter Johnson Award voting for best pitcher, Halladay received more points for the Stan Musial Award.
Over in the American League, there were more ballots cast, perhaps due to a more intriguing race. When the dust had settled, though, Toronto’s Jose Bautista had held off Boston’s Jacoby Ellsbury by a handful of points.
Bautista received eleven of the 22 first place votes and 225 total points, while Ellsbury received five first place selections and 200 points overall. Detroit Tiger first baseman Miguel Cabrera came in third with 183 points and three first place nods. He was followed by two players with Detroit ties, former Tiger and now New York Yankee Curtis Granderson and current teammate and Walter Johnson Award winner Justin Verlander.
The complete voting results are as follows (first place votes in parenthesis):
American League
Jose Bautista, Toronto (11) 225
Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston (5) 200
Miguel Cabrera, Detroit (3) 183
Curtis Granderson, New York (1) 135
Justin Verlander, Detroit (2) 126
Adrian Gonzalez, Boston 109
Dustin Pedroia, Boston 68
Robinson Cano, New York 55
Ian Kinsler, Texas 35
Michael Young, Texas 28
Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay 25
Alex Gordon, Kansas City 20
CC Sabathia, New York 13
Paul Konerko, Chicago 12
Adrian Beltre, Texas 10
Alex Avila, Detroit 8
Jered Weaver, Los Angeles of Anaheim 6
Ben Zobrist, Tampa Bay 6
Mike Napoli, Texas 4
James Shields, Tampa Bay 3
Victor Martinez, Boston 2
David Oritz, Boston 2
Melky Cabrera, Kansas City 1
National League
Matt Kemp, Los Angeles (15) 195
Ryan Braun, Milwaukee 134
Prince Fielder, Milwaukee 83
Joey Votto, Cincinnati 79
Justin Upton, Arizona 77
Roy Halladay, Philadelphia 49
Troy Tulowitski, Colorado 49
Albert Pujols, St. Louis 46
Jose Reyes, New York 42
Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles 31
Lance Berkman, St. Louis 28
Dan Uggla, Atlanta 14
Pablo Sandoval, San Francisco 13
Cliff Lee, Philadelphia 11
Hunter Pence, Philadelphia 6
Michael Morse, Washington 5
Brandon Phillips, Cincinnati 3
Ian Kennedy, Arizona 2
Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh 2
Carlos Gonzalez, Colorado 1
The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally. As of this writing, the organization consists of 316 blogs spanning all 30 major league squads as well as general baseball writing.
The BBA is organized under a similar structure as the Baseball Writers of America, where blogs that follow the same team are combined into “chapters” and only two votes from the chapter on an award are counted. The blog chapters that are focused on general baseball were allowed two votes as well, which they could use both on the same league or split between the two leagues.
Chapters generally followed one of two methods when casting their ballot. Either representatives of the chapter were given the ballots for voting or a “group ballot” was posted, accounting for both of their votes.
Notably, though the Alliance’s awards come out well before their official counterparts, the BBA selections have matched those of the Baseball Writers of America in all but two instances in the past two years. This, of course, does not include the Goose Gossage Award that is exclusive to the BBA.
Ballots are posted on the respective blogs and for this award, were tabulated on a 13-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 point scale for first through tenth place. In the interest of transparency, links are given below for the ballots. Chapter affiliation is in parenthesis. Those chapters that decided on the group method are noted with an asterisk.
American League
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)
Baltimore Life and Sports (Baltimore)
The Bat Shatters (Minnesota)
The Blue Jay Hunter (Toronto)
Boston Red Thoughts (Boston)*
Camden Crazies (Baltimore)
Contract Year (Oakland)*
Detroit Tigers Scorecard Blog (Detroit)
The Flagrant Fan (General)
Kings of Kauffman (Kansas City)*
Lady At The Bat (New York)
Misc. Baseball (History)
The Next Level Ballplayer (Other)
Seattle Mariners Musings (Seattle)
Some Thoughts On Baseball (Toronto)
Tigers Amateur Analysis (Detroit)
The Tribe Daily (Cleveland)*
Twins On Twins (Minnesota)
National League
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)
Appy Astros (Houston)
Blog Red Machine (Cincinnati)
Cincinnati Reds Blog (Cincinnati)
Dugger Sports (Philadelphia)
The Flagrant Fan (General)
Fungoes (St. Louis)
Misc. Baseball (History)
The Next Level Ballplayer (Other)
North Side Notch (Pittsburgh)
Phils Baseball (Philadelphia)
Rockies Woman (Colorado)
22 Gigantes (San Francisco)
Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? (Pittsburgh)
Prior Winners: 2010: Josh Hamilton, Texas; Joey Votto, Cincinnati
2009: Joe Mauer, Minnesota; Albert Pujols, St. Louis
The official website of the BBA is located atbaseballbloggersalliance.wordpress.com. The BBA can be found on Twitter by the handle @baseballblogs and by the hashmark #bbba. For more information, contact Daniel Shoptaw at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com.
VERLANDER UNANIMOUS SELECTION FOR WALTER JOHNSON AWARD
On the National League side, results were a little bit closer. Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw beat out Philadelphia Phillies ace Roy Halladay 137-112. Kershaw received 15 first place nods, while Halladay garnered eight. Halladay’s teammate, Cliff Lee, finished in the show position.
The complete voting results are as follows (first place votes in parenthesis):
American League
Justin Verlander, Detroit (21) 147
Jered Weaver, Los Angeles of Anaheim 67
CC Sabathia, New York 58
James Shields, Tampa Bay 40
Dan Haren, Los Angeles of Anaheim 20
CJ Wilson, Texas 9
Josh Beckett, Boston 6
Ricky Romero, Toronto 5
Felix Hernandez, Seattle 2
Doug Fister, Detroit 1
Brandon McCarthy, Oakland 1
David Price, Tampa Bay 1
National League
Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles (15) 137
Roy Halladay, Philadelphia (8) 112
Cliff Lee, Philadelphia 69
Ian Kennedy, Arizona 38
Cole Hamels, Philadelphia 9
Madison Bumgarner, San Francisco 7
Tim Lincecum, San Francisco 7
Matt Cain, San Francisco 3
Craig Kimbrel, Atlanta 3
Dillon Gee, New York 2
Ryan Vogelsong, San Francisco 2
Johnny Cueto, Cincinnati 1
Jair Jurrjens, Atlanta 1
The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally. As of this writing, the organization consists of 316 blogs spanning all 30 major league squads as well as general baseball writing.
The BBA is organized under a similar structure as the Baseball Writers of America, where blogs that follow the same team are combined into “chapters” and only two votes from the chapter on an award are counted. The blog chapters that are focused on general baseball were allowed two votes as well, which they could use both on the same league or split between the two leagues.
Chapters generally followed one of two methods when casting their ballot. Either representatives of the chapter were given the ballots for voting or a “group ballot” was posted, accounting for both of their votes.
Notably, though the Alliance’s awards come out well before their official counterparts, the BBA selections have matched those of the Baseball Writers of America in all but two instances in the past two years. This, of course, does not include the Goose Gossage Award that is exclusive to the BBA.
Ballots are posted on the respective blogs and for this award, were tabulated on a 7-4-3-2-1 point scale for first through fith place. In the interest of transparency, links are given below for the ballots. Chapter affiliation is in parenthesis. Those chapters that decided on the group method are noted with an asterisk.
American League
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)
Baltimore Sports and Life (Baltimore)
Boston Red Thoughts (Boston)*
Camden Crazies (Baltimore)
Contract Year (Oakland)*
Detroit Tigers Scorecard Blog (Detroit)
500 Level Fan (Toronto)
The Flagrant Fan (General)
Infield Fly (Toronto)
Lady At The Bat (New York)
Misc. Baseball (History)
North Dakota Twins Fan (Minnesota)
Old English D (Detroit)
The Rays Rant (Tampa Bay)
Seattle Mariners Musings (Seattle)
Seedlings To Stars (Other)
The Tribe Daily (Cleveland)*
Twins Trivia (Minnesota)
National League
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)
Appy Astros (Houston)
Bernie’s Crew (Milwaukee)*
Blog Red Machine (Cincinnati)
Cincinnati Reds Blog (Cincinnati)
C70 At The Bat (St. Louis)
Dugger Sports (Philadelphia)
The Eddie Kranepool Society (New York)
The Flagrant Fan (General)
Misc. Baseball (History)
North Side Notch (Pittsburgh)
Padres Trail (San Diego)
Phils Baseball (Philadelphia)
Pitchers Hit Eighth (St. Louis)
Prose and Ivy (Chicago)*
Raise The Jolly Roger (Pittsburgh)
Rockies Woman (Colorado)
22 Gigantes (San Francisco)
Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)
Prior Winners: 2010: Felix Hernadez, Seattle; Roy Halladay, Philadelphia
2009: Zack Greinke, Kansas City; Tim Lincecum, San Francisco
