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Welcome to the first Internet Baseball Awards update. We’ll be refreshing you on the voting daily, with updated leaderboards as well as some commentary on each of the separate races, and if at all possible, the calling out of people who have made terrible life decisions based on their voting habits. There’s little chance that this matches the excitement of last night’s playoff game, but at the same time, there’s at least a 50% chance Cal Ripken offers more commentary.

Speaking of last night’s game, we kept a camera on Angels Manager Mike Scioscia as he watched the events unfold, determining who his first place team would take on in the division series. Here are the results using hyperlapse from Instagram:

Thanks again to Mike for letting us keep the cameras rolling the entire time.

It would make sense, since we’re on the subject of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, to discuss the AL Player of the Year award…

*all eyes turn to David Freese*

… but we’re not going to do that. Let’s pivot to the AL Rookie of the Year (ROY) award!

Jose Abreu is so far out in front in this race that it’s far more interesting to see who will emerge from the peloton in second place. First though, the nitty gritty details on Abreu: The 27-year-old first baseman from , Cuba slashed .317/.383/.581, launching 36 home runs in the process. Before the season many speculated on Abreu’s slider-bat speed, or questioned whether he’d be able to hit for average and power at the same time. He answered emphatically, producing a top five offensive season per wRC+ and TAv. At the time, the $68 million deal the White Sox undertook seemed like a massive risk. Just under a full year later, it seems like an incredible bargain. Abreau appeared on 177 ballots, receiving a first place vote in 175 of them.

Only five other candidates received a first place vote in the AL ROY race (in order of overall placement): Masahiro Tanaka, Dellin Betances, Collin McHugh, Yordano Ventura and… Brock Holt. Look, I have all the love in the world for Brock Holt, but his presence here seems to have more to do with some Bostonian rapscallions having a psyochotic break amidst a losing season (yeah, you remember what those are like now, don’t you) than it bears any semblance to reality.

Holt is an outlier at 14th overall, but Tanaka-Ventura represent the 2nd-5th spots in voting. There’s a dropoff points-wise following Ventura, as he has almost double the point total of sixth place Marcus Stroman. All of this seems about right (barring Holt, mind you), as Betances was absolutely lights out, and having thrown 90 innings, avoids some of the concerns that a reliever doesn’t generate enough value overall to deserve recognition. Tanaka’s missed time drops him closer to the pack, and McHugh and Ventura both put together strong campaigns, but lacked overall impact.

Two strong seasons that aren’t getting the recognition they deserve? Matt Shoemaker and Daniel (Danny) Santana. Neither have the prospect pedigree of a Stroman or Ventura, but Shoemaker posted a 3.04 ERA, and nearly a strikeout per inning to solidify a volatile Angels rotation, and Santana threw down an OPS of 824 while playing shortstop and center field. There’s a ton of value in both of those seasons. Below are the full totals (to date) of the AL ROY race, and a sampling of the rest of the races.

Please remember that voting is still live, and subject to change. Cast your ballot here.

AL Rookie of the Year

Rank

Player

Points

1

Jose Abreu

2031

2

Masahiro Tanaka

636

3

Dellin Betances

489

4

Collin McHugh

463

5

Yordano Ventura

390

6

Marcus Stroman

198

7

Daniel Santana

183

8

Matt Shoemaker

155

9

Kevin Kiermaier

152

10

George Springer

85

11

Jake Odorizzi

79

12

Rougned Odor

56

13

Mookie Betts

40

14

Brock Holt

38

15

Xander Bogaerts

36

16

Kevin Gausman

29

17

Nick Castellanos

11

18

Caleb Joseph

10

19

Trevor Bauer

8

20

T.J. House

8

There are 36 total names, but it starts getting sparse here, so we’ll cut it off. Below are the remaining awards sans point totals to leave a little intrigue.

AL Player of the Year

Rank

Player

1

Mike Trout

2

Michael Brantley

3

Corey Kluber

AL Pitcher of the Year

Rank

Player

1

Corey Kluber

2

Felix Hernandez

3

Chris Sale

AL Manager of the Year

Rank

Manager

1

Buck Showalter

NL Rookie of the Year

Rank

Player

1

Jacob deGrom

2

Billy Hamilton

3

Ender Inciarte

NL Player of the Year

Rank

Player

1

Clayton Kershaw

2

Andrew McCutchen

3

Giancarlo Stanton

NL Pitcher of the Year

Rank

Player

1

Clayton Kershaw

2

Adam Wainwright

3

Jhonny Cueto

NL Manager of the Year

Rank

Player

1

Clint Hurdle

Thank you for reading

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NightmareRec0n
10/02
Once agin, I strongly disagree with the NL MVP. Lucroy is being discounted. According to Fangraphs, he was worth 6.3 WAR and BR he was 6.7 WAR. Add in the 23.7 runs saved due to framing and we are talking a 8.7-9.1 WAR player. If you split the difference on framing, he is still above Kershaw and on the level of Trout. Once again, a catcher can physically NOT player 162 games and has various intangibles like game calling that can't be quantified.

How hard is it to say that the 25th best offensive player,13th best defensive player, and best framer at by FAR the most difficult defensive position is not the best player in the league?

Consider this. Lucroy has had a top 30 catcher season of all time. Since 1990, Only Posey,Mauer,Piazza(struggling to call him a catcher), and Pudge have had better season. Two are clear HoFers. NOT INCLUDING FRAMING. Kershaw doesn;t crack the top 40 since 1990.
jimmyb1799
10/02
There's a lot going on here, my man -- a whole lot -- but I think we can safely say this isn't Craig's ballot. You're disagreeing with the internet, and the internet has eyes everywhere.
NightmareRec0n
10/02
I understand that it isn't Craig's ballot and I'm not being critical of him for once. I just feel like Lucroy isn't getting enough love. I feel like a lot of people pull up the WAR leaderboard see Kershaw's crazy ERA(and ignore the innings), Stanton's home run total, or McCutchen's awesomeness and fail to dig deeper.

The internet does have eyes everywhere, but I think framing is still overlooked. I can respect if you like Kershew more and I understand framing is imperfect, but I still don't get how sites like BP can push framing and still have Stanton get more votes than Lucroy(Stanton was my #4 because I gave him extra credit due to his freak accident). The conversation for NL MVP shouldn't be Kershaw circle jerk. It should be do you think IP are undervalued by WAR metrics? If you do, doesn't Cueto deserve to be above Kershaw? How much weight should we put in framing?
TheArtfulDodger
10/02
" but I still don't get how sites like BP can push framing and still have Stanton get more votes than Lucroy"

This is voting from everyone on the internet -- not merely BP authors. Other people bring their biases to the booth. So it goes.