My timing isn’t very good with this post as Jered Weaver picked up his first loss of the season tonight. However, this doesn’t change the fact that he had a truly remarkable April and is the primary reason why the Moonshiners find themselves in first place one month into the 2011 season.
Weaver finished the month with a perfect 6-0 record, winning all six of his starts. He compiled a 0.99 ERA, 0.788 WHIP and 49 strike outs, all very impressive numbers. Shockingly, none of these marks were good enough to lead the league, except wins, but I’ll get to that in a bit. His six wins are two more than any other pitcher has accumulated though.
The Moonshiners acquired Weaver from the Jackalope during the first round of the draft in exchange for their first round pick. As we all knew at the time, Weaver was exactly what the Moonshiners needed: a true ace. However, I don’t think anyone expected him to come out of the gates quite this strong. He has helped lead the Moonshiners to a top two ranking in every pitching category except saves (4th). Combined with the league’s best offense to date, the Moonshiners find themselves 13 points ahead of the pack with a very impressive 87 points.
Trading Weaver hasn’t really killed the Jackalope as you much as you might think though. They still have arguably three of the top five pitchers in the league and are right behind the Moonshiners in total pitching points. If their offense, specifically Albert Pujols, picks it up a bit, the second place Jackalope will be right on the Moonshiners’ heals. Ryan Braun has carried their offense so far, with a league leading ten home runs and a .356 batting average. Braun would probably get my vote for Offensive Player of the Month. One other candidate for that title would be Darkhorses outfielder Andre Ethier. Just a couple minutes ago, he recorded a RBI single to extend his hitting streak to 28 games. Going into tonight, he led the league with a .378 average, just a few points ahead of his Dodger teammate Matt Kemp.
Weaver wasn’t the only pitcher who compiled ridiculous statistics in April. Amazingly, Gators pitcher Josh Johnson has him beat in both ERA and WHIP. Johnson has a 0.88 ERA and 0.707 WHIP. Some bad luck has kept his win total at just three though. Johnson has carried the Gators to the third most pitching points in the league, however a putrid offense has kept them near the bottom of the league standings. The third pitcher who deserves special mention is Weaver’s Moonshiners and Angels teammate Dan Haren. Haren has a 1.23 ERA and a 0.750 WHIP with four wins. At one point, Weaver and Haren combined for eight wins in eight starts.
There is one other big news item tonight. Mariano Rivera became the DTBL’s all-time saves leader with the save he picked up against the Tigers this evening. This is deserving of a separate blog post though, so I will go into more detail about Rivera later this week.
We’re about two and a half weeks into the 2011 baseball season, but in many ways, things look very much like 2010. The Naturals are once again tied for first place, although not with the Darkhorses who are off to a slow start, but rather the rejuvenated Moonshiners. Last year, pitching dominated like it hadn’t since the pre-steroid era. That trend has continued early this season. And finally, Manny Ramirez continues to be in the news for all the wrong reasons.
Let’s start with Manny. His sudden retirement has probably been the biggest story of the early season. Facing another performance enhancing drug suspension, he elected to retire instead. The Tampa Bay Rays signed him this off-season in hopes of riding one last surge from one of the best hitters of the last two decades. Instead, Ramirez recorded only one hit in 17 at bats prior to his sudden retirement. Similarly, the Gators felt he had a little left in the tank as they decided to protect him this past winter. This past week, the Gators released the best player in franchise history, ending the longest tenure of a DTBL player and team in league history.
The Gators drafted Ramirez in the 8th round of the 1995 draft, possibly the biggest DTBL draft steal ever. He helped lead the Gators to a championship in his DTBL rookie season and then again in 1998. His name litters the league record books. He is the all-time RBI leader with 1746. He ranks third in career home runs (528) and runs scored (1467). His career batting average of .314 just misses the top ten. He also holds the league’s single season RBI record with an incredible 165 in 1999. Ramirez hit 30+ home runs with 100+ RBIs in nine straight seasons from 1998 through 2006. He even had four seasons with a batting average over .330. An amazing hitter, but unfortunately, all of these numbers will be considered tarnished by three separate PED related suspensions and/or positive tests.
With the Gators release of Ramirez, this leaves another Gator, Derek Jeter, and Alex Rodriguez (Kings) as the longest tenured players with a single DTBL team. Both were drafted by their respective teams in 1997. They are the only two players who have been on the same team since before the turn of the century. Interestingly, last year’s Gators squad had four such players on their roster: Ramirez, Jeter, Billy Wagner and Pedro Martinez. Although Martinez did not make an appearance for the Gators (or any MLB team) during the season.
In other news, the Moonshiners have been in first place for a good portion of the season so far. Their huge draft day trade with the Jackalope has paid early dividends as Jered Weaver has already won four games and leads the league in strikeouts too. The only other pitcher with four wins is his Moonshiners and Angels teammate Dan Haren, who leads the DTBL in ERA and WHIP. So Moonshiners hurlers lead every pitching category except saves. The Naturals are keeping pace as well and currently find themselves exactly where they finished 2010: tied for first place. The Naturals have been led by Troy Tulowitzki and his seven home runs. I don’t have the full statistics in front of me, but Tulo’s numbers since late August of last season have been absolutely ridiculous.
In the first week of the season, there were rumors of changes to the stitching and/or other physical attributes of the baseball due to an early surge of home runs and scoring in general. Those rumors have been put to rest since then as pitchers have continued to dominate. Six of the ten DTBL teams have ERA’s below 3.40, which is a very respectable mark. It is too early to make any comparisons to totals from previous seasons, but I think it is fair to say that the juiced ball talk during the first few days of the season was probably a bit premature.
There are a couple league records that are likely to fall this season. I should have mentioned these before the season started, but better late than never. First, Choppers relief pitcher Mariano Rivera is on the verge of becoming the league’s all-time save leader. He needs just three more to tie Trevor Hoffman with 560. He already leads the league this season with seven saves. The long-time Cougar has been traded twice the past two years. Next, Alex Rodriguez has a chance to break the DTBL career record in both home runs and RBIs. He sits 14 home runs behind Barry Bonds and with Manny Ramirez’s retirement, ARod needs 56 more RBIs to catch Manny. I completely neglected to mention another career record which was broken last season. Juan Pierre passed Kenny Lofton on that list during the 2010 season. Now if only he could catch fly balls in the 9th inning…
The new main page is here! It was a long time coming and I still have a lot of work to do, but at least I have something to show you just in time for Opening Day. A few notes about what you are seeing…
First of all, this main page is literally the only thing that has changed so far. Every other page continues to use the same code, style and images. Eventually, these pages will be replaced with something that looks similar to the main page, but I’ll be tackling them one at a time.
Next, several of the links in the menu either don’t work or are simply placeholders for pages that don’t exist yet. Specifically, there are two sub-menus that list all 10 teams: Team Pages and Stats. Currently, these take you to the same place: the old team stats pages. Eventually, “Team Pages” will point to a brand new feature of the site, which will be pages for each team containing all sorts of information besides just rosters/stats. This is the part of the site I will be working on next, so hopefully I’ll have something ready to go in the next couple weeks.
The content of the main page really isn’t much different than the old version, but I think it is more appealing and gives me a little more leeway to add new features in the future. Even this main page isn’t really “done” because I have a few ideas in mind. In particular, I have more things to add to the “DTBL Chatter” section, like the ability to add a quick reply, or even a new topic, straight from the main page. I may add some more news feeds or widgets to the right hand column as well.
The image you see on the home page (currently Buster Posey) is set to automatically pull the most recent image from the DTBL News feed. So I will try to include photos in most of my posts to keep this fresh. Soon you will all have the ability to create blog posts too, at which time I will encourage you to upload photos when you post a new story.
You should be able to get to all of the old pages via the new menu system. I should point out that the all important link to log in to the site is now in the upper right hand corner, along with links to the league’s Facebook group page, Twitter feed and RSS feed (DTBL News).
So why am I calling this DTBL v3.0? I’ve never really used a numbering system for the different versions of the league web site over the years. But essentially, I consider this to be the third major iteration of the site. It started as a very simple text based site back in the late 90s. At that time, I used a desktop software program to update the stats and generate reports which were then uploaded to a web site. Version 2 was the dynamic, database driven web site that we’ve been using since 2003. This is the first major change since then, so I’m calling it 3.0. Not many software developers get away with going 8 years between major releases, but my annual Commissioner’s salary of $0 isn’t quite high enough to justify much more work with that. I’m enjoying this project though, so I hope you like the results.
I don’t want to write a lengthy blog post every time I update a new page, so I’ll probably start a thread on the DTBL Forum to keep you updated on my progress. Now that I have a main page tie-in to the DTBL Forum again, you might actually see these posts! As always, I welcome your comments. Feel free to post a comment on this post, or on the DTBL Forum.
Only about 12 hours until first pitch. Welcome to the 2011 season!
There were no major surprises in the first few picks of the DTBL Draft, but that didn’t mean there was a lack of drama. Two blockbuster trades by the Jackalope shook up their team and perhaps the league as a whole. The Demigods grabbed the young phenom catcher Buster Posey with the first pick in the draft, but the Jackalope stole the headlines.
The 2011 DTBL Draft began with the Demigods selecting Posey, who was probably the general consensus number one player available. In his first MLB season, all he did was hit .305 with 18 home runs and 67 RBIs in just over 400 at bats, on his way to leading the San Francisco Giants to their first World Series title since 1954. Posey’s fantasy value is especially high at a weak position like catcher. He gives the Demigods almost indisputably the best catching duo in the league, paired with Joe Mauer. Mauer was also a first round pick of the Demigods back in 2005. Off the top of my head, the only other time I recall a catcher being selected with the first pick in the draft was Mike Piazza by the Metros way back in 1994. The Demigods had a rough year in 2010, but Posey should be a major step towards turning things around.
The Mavericks had the next two picks, the second straight year in which they possessed a few early picks. Their own pick was third overall and they acquired the second pick from the Cougars in a trade for Adam Dunn last summer. With that pick from the Cougars, they selected another one of last year’s rookie sensations: outfielder Jason Heyward. And the youth movement continued with the next selection when they took another catcher, Carlos Santana. The Mavericks clearly foresaw the two outstanding catchers that would be available when they dealt veteran Jorge Posada last year. While the Demigods have the most impressive catching combination, the Mavericks pair of Santana and Wieters has a ton of potential as well. Heyward will give their outfield a much needed boost. This pair of picks should help the Mavericks recover from the hugely disappointing 2010.
The Choppers were the first team to draft a “veteran” when they selected outfielder Jose Bautista with the fourth pick. Bautista will be a DTBL rookie this season, but has several years of MLB experience. He had a breakout season in 2010, leading all of baseball with 54 home runs. He drove in 124 and scored 109 runs. Bautista’s home run total was 12 more than any DTBL player accumulated last season. Whether or not he will be able to duplicate those numbers remains to be seen, but he was pretty much a no-brainer selection for the Choppers at this point. None of these first four picks were very surprising.
With the big four gone, the Gators were left with a less obvious choice at number five. They elected to take outfielder Angel Pagan. Like Bautista, he sort of came out of nowhere to have a great 2010 season. A platoon player most of his career, Pagan now has a firm grip on any everyday spot for the Mets and should reward the Gators with a good average, a lot of steals and even some surprising power.
The second half of the first round is where things got really interesting. The Moonshiners held the sixth pick and there was only one highly sought after player left on the board. However, the Moonshiners greatest need was starting pitching, and while this was a strong field for pitchers, none of them really stood out as first round material. Fortunately for the Moonshiners, the Jackalope came calling because they were very interested in outfielder Mike Stanton. So the Jackalope dealt one of their five superstar pitchers, Jared Weaver, along with a fifth round pick to the Moonshiners for the sixth overall selection. The Jackalope then used that pick to grab the young, powerful outfielder Stanton. This is one of those trades that will probably wind up helping one team more than the other, but made perfect sense for both. Weaver is one of the most underrated pitchers in the game and actually led the DTBL in strike outs last season. He probably would have been a top three pick in this draft.
Meanwhile, the Jackalope started their bold transformation by acquiring Stanton. But that was just the beginning. Minutes after trading Weaver, the Jackalope dealt another one of their starting pitchers. In one of the biggest trades in recent history, the Jackalope dealt Zack Greinke and a fourth round pick to the Naturals for first baseman Ryan Howard and a sixth round pick. If you are wondering how the Jackalope could survive trading two elite starting pitchers in the matter of minutes, keep in mind that they basically had five of the top ten pitchers in the entire league on their roster last year and easily led the league in total pitching points, blowing out the competition in ERA and WHIP. Even without Weaver and Greinke, they still have three pitchers that are better than anybody on most teams: Felix Hernandez, Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee. There is no reason to think they still can’t dominate the pitching categories. But now they actually have a legitimate offense around Albert Pujols. Howard and Stanton should immediately turn the Jackalope from a below average offensive team to one of the league’s best. Make no mistake about it, the Jackalope will be one of the teams to beat this season.
The Kings were totally thrown off by the Jackalope deals, particularly the one to acquire the Stanton pick. They thought they were going to be in a good spot to grab Stanton after the Gators took Pagan. The Kings had only identified five players as being solid first round picks, but with all of them off the board, they had to go a different route and fill a position of need instead. They decided to take catcher Miguel Montero with the seventh pick. They had no catchers on their roster and felt there was a major drop off in the available players after him. Montero was the first non-DTBL rookie selected in this draft. He was also the third catcher taken in the first round, which has to be unprecedented. Next, with their regular pick, the Jackalope grabbed speedster outfielder Michael Bourn, further emphasizing their focus on offense.
The two defending champions completed the first round, but went different routes in doing so. The Naturals picked another young potential superstar, third baseman Pedro Alvarez. I didn’t mention it earlier, but the Jackalope weren’t the only team trading from a position of strength in that Greinke/Howard deal. The Naturals could afford to lose Howard since they already possessed two of the game’s best first basemen in Miguel Cabrera and Joey Votto. The deal also paved the way to be able to grab a young slugger like Alvarez with the ninth pick. Finally, the Darkhorses completed the first round by taking the guy who they had tagged as the best pitcher in the draft, Ted Lilly. The veteran Lilly could have a great season pitching a full year in pitcher friendly Dodger Stadium.
We almost went an entire first round without a pitcher being taken. This points to a lack of standout pitchers in the draft pool, but does not speak to the overall talent level at the positions. Plenty of pitchers started to fly off the board in the second round, including a run of four straight relief pitchers. The Cougars used their first pick of the draft to take starting pitcher Daniel Hudson with the second pick of the second round. There was also another trade in the second round. The Mavericks dealt Hall of Fame closer Mariano Rivera to the Choppers for their second round pick. The Mavericks used that pick to draft shortstop Starlin Castro, immediately after picking outfielder Nick Markakis with their own pick. This gave the Mavericks four of the first 14 selections in this draft.
The implications of this draft could be felt for quite some time. Although there were only a handful of elite players available in the first round, the top championship contenders still found a way to improve their teams. It should be a fun season.
The 19th annual DTBL Draft is set to begin this afternoon, so I figured I would take a few minutes to set the stage.
All eyes will be on the Mavericks, who possess two of the first three picks in the draft. Last year, they made three first round selections. So they seem to be well positioned to build a solid foundation with young talent. But before the Mavericks have their pick of the litter, the Demigods will make the first overall pick. Some years there is an obvious #1 player on the board, but I don’t think that is the case this year. They could go a number of directions to fill a need. The Choppers and Gators hold the fourth and fifth picks respectively, and figure to be in good spots to pick up quality players.
Overall, I think this is a deep draft. As I previously mentioned, I had trouble making the final decisions on which players to include, especially when it came to pitchers. This should make for a very interesting draft start to finish. Having said that, I was only able to identify five players who I feel are sure thing first round picks. This means that half of the players taken in the first round could be surprises and could cause some teams to pick the best player available at a position of need rather than going with the best player on the board.
Will this be another draft full of trades? Already, a number of picks have been dealt in carry over trades from last season. The first trade of the year was recently completed, but it did not include draft picks. The Mavericks and Naturals made another deal swapping Orioles players. The Mavericks acquired outfielder Adam Jones from the Naturals for starting pitcher Brian Matusz. This trade was a product of a numbers game. The Mavericks had six starting pitcher keepers, so at least one of them was expendable. Meanwhile, the Naturals already had a full outfield. This deal gives both teams a little more flexibility on where they can go with their early draft picks.
The position changes and player adds/drops for 2011 have been posted on the DTBL Forum. Please take a look at these and post any comments you may have. The official roster will be posted on the web site later this week, so get those comments/suggestions in soon!
Also, I’m still seeking opinions on the possible transaction deadline change. So far, the consensus seems to be to leave it as is on Sundays, but there is still plenty of time to chime in.
Although it may not look much like spring where most of us live, the season has changed in Florida and Arizona as pitchers and catchers begin to report to MLB camps. With that being the case, the DTBL season is right around the corner as well.
You may have seen my response to Nick’s post on the Facebook group page indicating that I am running a bit behind in my preparation for the upcoming season. That is still the case, however I expect to get caught up this week. My schedule is pretty wide open this week, so I intend to have the first draft of the DTBL player adds/drops/position changes posted before the weekend. As usual, I’ll solicit input on the tentative rosters before posting the official draft roster sometime next week.
Next, I’m not even going to bother trying to find a date that will work for everyone for a live draft this year. As a group, we seem to be busier and busier each year. This year, we’ve got two members with newborn babies at home (Marc and Jay) and another in full wedding planning mode (Kelly). I’d like to think I could use these “distractions” for others to my advantage, but that’s not likely. Anyway, we will go with the same style draft we’ve been using for years. However, we will need to get started a little earlier than usual since the MLB season starts on March 31 this year. Tentatively pencil in Monday, March 7 as the draft start date.
Speaking of the early MLB start, this is due to a change in scheduling practices. Please check out this post on the DTBL Forum where I am soliciting input on a potential change to the weekly transaction deadline. I would appreciate a response from as many of you as possible.
First of all, the main purpose of this post is to verify that the new RSS feed application I just installed on Facebook is working. If it is, this post should appear in the newly created DTBL group on Facebook.
But while I’m at it, I might as well share the latest DTBL News. Last night, Mike and I did the coin toss to break the tie between the Naturals and Darkhorses for draft position. As you may recall, not only did the two teams tie for the league championship, but the first tie-breaker criteria also failed to break the tie. So it came down to a coin toss. I wanted to make sure I had another unbiased league member present when I did it, so Mike filled that role last night. The result was that the Naturals will have the ninth pick in each round of the draft, while the Darkhorses will pick tenth for the fourth straight year.
I’ve been doing some work on the new web site lately. One of the main goals of this project is to make our league more interactive. Part of the plan is to tie our league into popular social networking sites. This is why I created the Facebook group last week. My hope is to get new DTBL blog entries to show up in your Facebook feeds, so you won’t even have to go to the league web site to see the latest news. Similarly, I have decided to create a Twitter account. This account will be used exclusively to post DTBL and baseball related information. If you are a Twitter user and want to start following me, my account name is @DTBL_Kevin, http://twitter.com/DTBL_Kevin. You don’t need to sign up for Twitter to get the latest updates though. I intend to set up a live feed on the new web site which will not only display my tweets, but those of some baseball media personalities as well.
Although the full new web site probably won’t be finished for a few months, I hope to give you some previews soon. Stay tuned!
Years from now after his career is over, we will have to give serious consideration to renaming the award for the league’s best player to the Albert Pujols Award. Every single year, he puts up the kind of numbers you would expect for the recipient of such an award. Never once has he had a bad season. And now, for the fourth time in his career, Jackalope first baseman Albert Pujols has won the DTBL Most Valuable Player award.
Has there ever been a more predictable player in terms of fantasy production? Every season is the same for Pujols. His numbers this year (.312 average, 42 home runs, 118 RBIs, 115 runs, 14 stolen bases) are basically identical to every other season of his career. Shockingly, that batting average was a career worst. Not too many guys win the MVP in their worst season in terms of batting average. Basically, all of his numbers were right in line with his career averages. Nothing spectacular, but only by his standards. Pujols led the DTBL in home runs and runs. He came in third in RBIs and tenth in batting average. Even the stolen base numbers were pretty respectable.
This is Pujols’ fourth MVP award. It is the second time he has won the award in consecutive seasons. He did so in 2003 and 2004 and now again in 2009 and 2010. There were some pretty darn good seasons in between as well. Pujols has essentially carried the Jackalope offense ever since they made him their first round pick back in 2002. He is the franchise career leader in home runs (369), RBIs (1095) and runs (1069). He broke the 1,000 milestone in RBIs and runs this season and will reach 400 DTBL home runs sometime next season. It won’t be long before we see him near the top of the all-time league leaders. He already ranks second in career batting average (.331).
Pujols did not win this award easily. In fact, I was a little surprised he won it at all. Four other players had similarly fantastic seasons and this award could have gone to any of them. Those players are Kings outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, Cougars outfielder Josh Hamilton and Naturals first basemen Miguel Cabrera and Joey Votto. Cabrera and Votto may have hurt each others chances of winning this award, although Cabrera had a slight edge on Votto in every category except stolen bases.
Pujols won the award with just three of the ten first place votes. He placed second on four ballots and third on the other three for a total of 73 points. This bested Gonzalez by just six points. Gonzalez, the league’s Rookie of the Year, also garnered three first place votes. Cabrera finished third with a pair of first place votes and 47 points. He led the league in RBIs and also had a higher average than Pujols. Somehow, he did not make the top five on one ballot. Next came the guy who will probably beat out Pujols for the NL MVP, Joey Votto. The MLB team success will be the primary factor in the NL MVP vote, which doesn’t apply here, although Votto did play for the co-champion Naturals. He received one first place vote and 40 total points. Finally, Josh Hamilton finished fifth, but even he received a first place vote. His chances of winning this award were derailed by missing most of the final month with a rib injury though. These five guys had tremendous seasons in a year otherwise dominated by pitching. With the exception of Hamilton, the rest of them kept their DTBL teams in championship contention right until the last week of the season.
So the Jackalope claimed two of the three post-season awards with the other going to the Kings. Neither of the co-champions had an award winner, but I’m sure the Naturals and Darkhorses prefer the championship plaque anyway.
That’s all for now, but a lot more is coming soon. Next up, the roster cut deadline is quickly approaching. Each team will need to cut down to 16 players by the end of November. More to come on that soon.
2010 was the best season for pitchers in DTBL history. The countless number of dominating pitching performances was unprecedented. A man responsible for two of the season’s best moments easily won the 2010 DTBL Cy Young Award. That pitcher is Jackalope right-hander Roy Halladay.
Halladay got his first Phillies and National League season off to a bang with a bunch of impressive starts in the first two months, capped off by throwing the 20th perfect game in MLB history in late May. He wasn’t done with historic outings though. In October, he threw just the second no-hitter in post-season history against Cincinnati Reds in the NLDS. Of course, that performance did not count towards his DTBL accomplishments, but was a nice footnote to an incredible season.
The Jackalope had the best pitching staff in the league and arguably one of the top starting rotations in DTBL history. However, there was no question who the ace of the staff was. Halladay tied for the league lead in wins with 21. His 2.44 ERA and 1.041 WHIP were both the third lowest among qualified pitchers. He finished fifth in strike outs with 219. The win and strike out totals were career bests.
Halladay has had a remarkably consistent career with the Jackalope. This was the third time he reached the 20 win plateau and he is almost always near the top of the league in ERA and WHIP as well. The Jackalope stole him in the fourth round of the 2002 draft and have reaped the rewards ever since. Halladay has 146 wins for the Jackalope with a career ERA barely over 3.00. Only one pitcher on a DTBL roster this season has more DTBL career wins (Andy Pettitte). He ranks in the league’s all-time top 10 in wins, ERA and WHIP. Although he has been a dominating force in the league for nearly a decade, this is his first DTBL Cy Young Award. He finished third in the voting in both 2003 and 2008.
As stated up front, this was a truly remarkable year for pitchers. Although Halladay ran away with the award, the rest of the voting showed just how many deserving candidates there were for the award. Halladay received nine of the ten first place votes for a total of 97 points. 12 other pitchers received top five votes. Usually disbursement like that is saved for the other two awards more so than Cy Young. Cougars pitcher Adam Wainwright finished second, receiving the other first place vote and five seconds for 54 points. Wainwright also won 20 games, and even had a slightly lower ERA than Halladay. Felix Hernandez was a test case in how people value wins. Arguably, he had the most impressive stats of any pitcher if you ignore that he only had 13 wins. He led the league in ERA and finished second in strike outs. His 30 points ranked him third in the award voting, but four people didn’t put him on their ballot. Next came Gators lefty C.C. Sabathia with 23 points. Sabathia tied Halladay for the league lead with 21 wins. Coming in fifth with 20 points was another Gators pitcher, Ubaldo Jimenez. Early in the season, it appeared he would run away with this award. He cooled off in the second half, but still finished with what would be Cy Young worthy numbers most years. Even outside of the top five were a couple of pitchers who could have won in other years, like David Price and strike out champion Jered Weaver. Not to mention a bunch of closers who received some token votes.
So far, Carlos Gonzalez and Roy Halladay have cruised to victories in the first two awards that have been named. I can assure you though that the voting for Most Valuable Player was much, much closer. Stay tuned for that tomorrow evening.
