213 Miles from Shea is proud of our affiliation to the Baseball Bloggers Alliance and as per tradition, each year members nominate players and managers for their performance during the baseball season. The kicker is that since this is a Mets site, I can only vote for the National League, which makes sense because I wouldn’t really be qualified to make decisions about the American League. So here are your National League nominees from 213MFS:
Connie Mack Award (Manager of the Year): Freddie Gonzalez
This was probably the toughest vote in the National League because for the most part, the teams with a lot of talent won their divisions and made it into the playoffs. If the Mets still competitive deeper in the year, than Collins should be the winner (and may still have a Dark Horse shot). Freddie gets it because he got his players to move beyond last year’s epic collapse and back into the playoffs this year, even if it was for just one game.
Willie Mays Award (Rookie of the Year): Bryce Harper
Harper sort of had this award wrapped up before he stepped on the field this year. He performed exactly how we all thought he would (ie, literal All-Star) and he deserves the Rookie of the Year Award.
Goose Gossage Award (Best Reliever): Craig Kimbrel
Talk about a closer. 42 saves, tied for third best in the Majors, and 1.01 ERA. In addition, he has 16.7 strikeouts per nine innings.
Walter Johnson Award (Cy Young): R.A. Dickey
Dickey is more than just an amazing story, he’s the best pitcher in baseball right now. He had one terrible month this year, and despite that he leads the league in strikeouts, complete games, shut outs and almost leading the league in wins and ERA. He was one of the few bright spots on the Mets this year and always gave the Mets a chance to win, which is what you want out of your Cy Young.
Stan Musial Award (MVP): Buster Posey
This was tough, statistically Posey is really close to Braun, who also had a tremendous year. I’m not letting Braun’s steroid incident from last year impact my decision about MVP this year. I have two qualifications for MVP. The team must be completely different without that player and the team should be competitive, possibly playoffs. Braun almost has both of these, you can make the argument that the Brewers were competitive until the end. Posey ultimately gets the award because when the offense of the Giants started to fall apart, he stepped up, filled in at that role and put the team way ahead in the division.
