2009 SBN Baseball Awards: AL Rookie of the Year

by Ian Casselberry on Nov 10, 2009 12:00 PM EST in News Comment 13 comments

This week, we're posting the results for each of Major League Baseball's regular season awards, as voted upon by the SB Nation baseball bloggers. (Each site gets two ballots; Mack Avenue Tigers' Kurt Mensching helped me out with a vote.)

Today's announcement is for the 2009 Rookie of the Year balloting. This is the one award a Tigers player may have had his best chance with. How did Detroit's Kid Rick do?

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Elvis Andrus	Texas Rangers	6	9	6	63
2	Andrew Bailey	Oakland Athletics	11	1	3	61
3	Jeff Niemann	Tampa Bay Rays	3	5	3	33
4	Rick Porcello	Detroit Tigers	2	7	2	33
5	Brett Anderson	Oakland Athletics	5	1	3	31
6	Gordon Beckham	Chicago White Sox	1	2	8	19
7	Nolan Reimold	Baltimore Orioles	1	-	1	6
8	Matt Wieters	Baltimore Orioles	-	1	3	6
9	Brad Bergesen	Baltimore Orioles	-	1	-	3
10	Ricky Romero	Toronto Blue Jays	-	1	-	3
11	Travis Snider	Toronto Blue Jays	-	1	-	3

I have to say, this one surprises me. I'm not surprised Rick Porcello didn't win. Everyday position players usually (and should) get more consideration. But I didn't think Kid Rick would finish behind two other pitchers. I'm biased, of course. Guess who my first-place vote went to?

Elvis Andrus got the second-place vote on my ballot, with Gordon Beckham in third. There was probably some AL Central bias there, as I saw Beckham play more than the other candidates. I suppose that gave him the edge over Andrew Bailey for me.

How would you have voted?

Tomorrow, we'll have SBN's Cy Young winners, and we'll conclude with the Most Valuable Players on Thursday.

The National League ballot is after the jump:

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Tommy Hanson	Atlanta Braves	9	9	6	78
2	J.A. Happ	Philadelphia Phillies	6	9	7	64
3	Andrew McCutchen	Pittsburgh Pirates	8	3	5	54
4	Chris Coghlan	Florida Marlins	7	5	4	54
5	Dexter Fowler	Colorado Rockies	-	3	1	10
6	Randy Wells	Chicago Cubs	-	-	6	6
7	Garrett Jones	Pittsburgh Pirates	1	-	-	5
8	Casey McGehee	Milwaukee Brewers	-	1	2	5
9	Seth Smith	Colorado Rockies	-	1	-	3

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Comments

Only two first place votes for Kid Rick?

Would have expected more.

by jman077 on Nov 10, 2009 1:17 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I would have voted:

Bailey, Porcello, Andrus. Nothing about Andrus really stands out to me, other than his first name.

by StringTheory on Nov 10, 2009 1:33 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

not surprised about andrus

from watching the Rangers a lot this year, he is very deserving.. he’s about the only one I’d be happy to see win the actual award over Rick. no, not biased at all ;)

No Run Support

by allikazoo on Nov 10, 2009 2:03 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I am stunned...

That Wieters didn’t unanimously win both the AL and NL ROY. He should have gotten every first, second and third place vote casted. I’m sure there is still time for him to take the SBN MVP and Cy Young in both leagues, though.

All kidding aside, I expected that Andrus and Rick would be #1 and #2 in some fashion. Surprised that he didn’t get more love.

by Grant E. on Nov 10, 2009 2:07 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Casted?

I’m an idiot.

by Grant E. on Nov 10, 2009 2:09 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I'm not sure I could offer an unbiased, objective opinion

I know there’s this stigma against pitchers in ROY for some reason, but what Porcello did was pretty impressive when you put it in context (20-year-old who never played about single A won 14 games in the heat of a pennant race). They all have their pros and cons, I suppose. Andrew Bailey has some really impressive numbers (most of which I didn’t see), but he was not in a pennant race and therefore some voters might feel like he wasn’t “truly” tested (The last three AL ROY winners were from teams that made it to the World Series, although that will not happen this year because the Yankees didn’t really have anyone who you could seriously consider). Elvis Andrus is probably the top contender among position players, but his numbers aren’t really eye-popping (Again, I didn’t see THAT much of him, so it’s very possible that if you saw him on an everyday basis, you’d know something that I missed). Tough choice this year. Very tough choice.

Tigers Amateur Analysis

by SabreRoseTiger on Nov 10, 2009 2:44 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Past ROY winners with a lower OPS than Andrus:

1988 – Walt Weiss
1985 – Ozzie Guillen
1979 – Alredo Griffin
1956 – Luis Aparicio

That’s going back 1950. I’m not trying to launch a campaign against Elvis. I was just curious. OPS ignores his 33 SB, so I’m being a little unfair too.

by StringTheory on Nov 10, 2009 2:57 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Defense

Andrus deserves a GG.

President, Vice President and Secretary of the Casey Crosby Fanclub.

by demondeaconsbaseball on Nov 10, 2009 5:19 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

No lies, I think the fact that Brett Anderson is below Porcello is a crime. He was easily the best A’s pitcher this year, so I don’t know how Bailey got all that love.

Fire Jim Leyland

And now at Beyond the Boxscore and Project Prospect!

by Mike Rogers on Nov 10, 2009 3:10 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Bailey got more love because he did his job better than Anderson

Not that I’m necessarily going to agree with the rankings on any award from blogs or MSM, but I think you’re letting your vision of Brett Anderson get clouded on this one.

Anderson had a greater WAR, because he threw more innings. Bailey had better peripherals in every other major pitching statistic. Is Anderson’s job harder? Sure.

Is Bailey’s performance harder to replicate? It looks like it, since he had the best FIP of any closer in the AL, the 4th best of any reliever over all.

Anderson had some bad luck with BABIP and his numbers may have looked better if that didn’t happen, but I’m counting that against him. Awards are given based on what happened, not what should have happened.

by The Nicker on Nov 10, 2009 5:17 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

My vote

went Bailey, Andrus, Porcello, I believe.

Bailey for all the reasons Nicker said, Andrus for such beautiful defense, and Porcello for really stepping up down the stretch and having a good month of May.

Mack Avenue Tigers

by Kurt Mensching on Nov 10, 2009 5:25 PM EST reply actions 0 recs