The End of Season Awards - BBA Awards Voting
It’s an honor to be included in the Baseball Bloggers Alliance voting on the major awards in baseball.
Acording to the BBA website at baseballbloggersalliance.com, "The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in 2009 to foster communication and collaboration between bloggers across baseball."
"The BBA has, as a secondary aim, the goal of producing year-end awards in a similar fashion to the Baseball Writers Association of America. These awards can be found here in October with links back to the voters, ensuring transparency and, most likely, the onset of some good baseball arguments."
To find a complete list of links to the member BBA Blogs, click here
We have chosen as a group to vote using the same criteria as the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA). The BBWAA has two writers for each team vote on the awards. We want to give the fans of the teams we represent an alternative voice on these awards while holding ourselves to the same standards and criteria for voting.
The San Diego chapter of the BBA elected to have all 5 members vote and have the combined votes count for both votes. Votes were aggregated on a first place-3 points, second place-2 points, third place-1 point system.
The Padres chapter assigned both of our votes for 2009 National League Manager of the Year in the following manner:
- First Place - Jim Tracy
- Second Place - Tony LaRussa
- Third Place - Joe Torre
Because I blog mostly about the San Diego Padres and the NL West, I have limited the explanations of my voting to the National League, the league I get to watch on a regular basis and the league I feel like I have more of a voice on.
Over the coming days I will be posting my picks for the NL Manager of the Year, NL Rookie of the Year, NL Cy Young and the NL MVP.
I hope you enjoy reading my take or at least are prompted to send me a nasty note asking why your favorite was not included.
Web
You can look forward to the San Diego BBA members voting on -
Manager of the Year: Monday, October 12
Rookie of the Year: Thursday, October 15
Cy Young Award: Monday, October 19
Most Valuable Player: Monday, October 26
2009 NL Manager of the Year
Manager of the year was perhaps the easiest award for me to vote on. To start the year I watched a terrible Rockies team struggle against division foes with a 6-9 record in April. Then Tracy took over and the team almost immediately changed their character and they started winning. No other manager had as much of an impact on a team.
Honorable Mention – Fredi Gonzalez – Marlins
Directed the lowest budget team in baseball to an 87-75 record. Good enough for 2nd place in the NL East and just 5 games out in the Wild Card.
3 - Bud Black - Padres
For not losing 100 with this group.
2 - Tony LaRussa - Cardinals
LaRussa once again took a team that was projected to be middle of the pack and with the addition of 1 player is in the playoffs.
1 - Jim Tracy -
Took over an 18-28 team and got them to play some of the best
baseball in the NL from that point on and win the NL Wild Card
