The SBN baseball writing contingent voted this year for Rookie of the Year, Pitcher of the Year, and Player of the Year. Mark Brown and I voted for the American League awards for Camden Chat, and over the next few days I'll be revealing who won for each category and who we voted for in each instance.
First up is Rookie of the Year, which Mike Trout won easily. Trout captured all 26 first place votes to run away with the award. Trout in 2012 was, as you all know, phenomenal. He put up a hitting line of .326/.399/.564. He was first in the A.L. in OPS+, WAR, runs scored, stolen bases, and WPA. He was second in the A.L. in batting average and OPS, third in OBP and SLG. And of course he did it all at the very young age of just 20.
As for who we voted for, Mark and I both selected Trout in first place and and Yu Darvish in second place. Mark then went the traditional route and chose Yoenis Cespedes in third place, but I went all out homer and chose Wei-Yin Chen. I normally try to avoid being a homer, and if this had been a closer race I might have gone another way. But since it was obvious Trout would be the landslide winner, I decided to throw a vote Chen's way. Below is the complete list of votes:
Player | Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Points |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mike Trout | Los Angeles Angels | 26 | 130 | ||
Yu Darvish | Texas Rangers | 16 | 7 | 55 | |
Yoenis Cespedes | Oakland Athletics | 9 | 10 | 37 | |
Jarrod Parker | Oakland Athletics | 1 | 6 | 9 | |
Jesus Montero | Seattle Mariners | 1 | 1 | ||
Matt Moore | Tampa Bay Rays | 1 | 1 | ||
Wei-Yin Chen | Baltimore Orioles | 1 | 1 |
In the National League, Bryce Harper was easily voted the winner, but as you can see it was a closer race (and with more candidates). Harper played in 139 games in 2012 and hit .270/.340/.477 with 22 home runs. Unlike Trout, his name doesn't pepper the leader board, but for rookies he was tops in WAR (thanks in big part to his defensive numbers). Here is the full voting list for the NL:
Player | Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Points |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bryce Harper | Washington Nationals | 26 | 9 | 157 | |
Wade Miley | Arizona Diamondbacks | 8 | 21 | 5 | 108 |
Todd Frazier | Cincinnati Reds | 1 | 4 | 9 | 26 |
Norichika Aoki | Milwaukee Brewers | 14 | 14 | ||
Zack Cozart | Cincinnati Reds | 1 | 2 | 5 | |
Andrelton Simmons | Atlanta Braves | 1 | 1 | ||
Anthony Rizzo | Chicago Cubs | 1 | 1 | ||
Lucas Harrell | Houston Astros | 1 | 1 | ||
Mike Fiers | Milwaukee Brewers | 1 | 1 | ||
Yasmani Grandal | San Diego Padres | 1 | 1 |
The Rookes of the Year as voted by the BBWAA will be released later today, so we'll see how they match up with the group of SBN baseball writers.