Within the past little while this blog became a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (BBA), which is a group of over 350 blogs and bloggers from across the league. Every season the BBA conducts a vote of it’s own on each of the major awards (Manager of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Rolaids Relief Man Award, Cy Young, and the MVP) and the results of our vote will be announced over a five day span from October 15th-19th.

With that said I present you my personal ballot with a couple things to remember. One, this is not a prediction of what I think will happen, but instead it is who I would vote for if I had the vote. Two, being that this this blog is an for an AL Team, the Blue Jays, this is only an AL Ballot, not for the entire league.

Connie Mack Award (Manager of the Year)
1. Joe Maddon
2. Bob Melvin
3. Buck Showalter

While the choice to put Madden on top may seem suspect as conventionally this award is given to the manager who did the best job at “coaching up his team” to me it just makes sense. Often we talk about how a manager has intangibles that we just can’t quantify and this year those intangibles were supposedly evident in Bob Melvin and Buck Showalter. While that may be true as well as the fact that both Melvin and Showalter are good tactical managers themselves, Joe Maddon manages differently. He thinks outside the box and innovates as a manager, which puts him tops in the league for now and the foreseeable future.

Willie Mays Award (Rookie of the Year)
1. Mike Trout
2. Yu Darvish
3. Yoenis Cespedes

Let’s just say if I could fill all three of those spots with Mike Trout, I would.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gif via Bleacher Report

Goose Gossage Award (Top Reliever)
1. Fernando Rodney
2. Joe Nathan
3. David Robertson

Choosing the top AL reliever this year evidently wasn’t very difficult. It’s hard not to choose a guy who not only led the American League in fWAR, but also set the single season ERA record with a ridiculous 0.60 ERA. Beyond that Rodney posted the 16th highest K%, the 8th lowest BB%, the 2nd lowest HR/9, and the 5th highest ground ball rate. He didn’t get by on smoke and mirrors, Rodney produced one of the better seasons by a reliever in the last five years and this was after 2011 when he posted the 19th highest walk rate in the last 30 years.

Walter Johnson Award (Top Pitcher)
1. Justin Verlander
2. David Price
3. Felix Hernandez
4. Yu Darvish
5. Chris Sale

For the Walter Johnson Award, I really wanted to make a case for David Price and all his awesomeness. Despite his being a Ray he is legitimately my favourite pitcher to watch in the entire league. Alas I was not successful in the case for Price because while he did post a similar ERA, strikeout rate and walk rate he also threw almost 30 less innings than Verlander. Verlander pitched 13% more innings than Price while maintaing similar and perhaps even better stats as well as posting nearly identical stats to those that won him the Cy Young Award last year.

Stan Musial Award (Top Overall Player)
1. Mike Trout
2. Miguel Cabrera
3. Robinson Cano
4. Justin Verlander
5. Adrian Beltre
6. Austin Jackson
7. Adam Jones
8. Alex Gordon
9. Joe Mauer
10. Edwin Encarnacion

In what is probably the most controversial choice (though I’m not sure why) my MVP is Mike Trout. Mike Trout is amazing, not only did he become the first rookie ever with 30 home runs and 40 stolen bases, but he posted the exact same wRC+ as Miguel Cabrera. By that measure alone he should be in the conversation for MVP, but that doesn’t factor in that Mike Trout not only hits like that while playing one of the hardest positions in baseball, but also that he plays his position as good as anyone in the major leagues today. As good a hitter at a harder position, I’m not sure you could ask for much more in an MVP.