BP Unfiltered

Jeff Ballard Award

by Geoff Young

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Yesterday's Lineup Card featured nine fictitious awards that we'd like to see given to players for their efforts in areas not formally recognized. One such award was the Jeff Ballard Award, which honors “the most effective pitcher who can't strike out batters.”

We named this year's winner, and introduced two voting factions–the Effectivists (who favor good pitching to lack of strikeouts) and the Punchlessies (who lean toward lack of strikeouts). But because everything needs a historical context, here is the complete list of Jeff Ballard Award winners, as determined by yours truly (an Effectivist):

Year	Player	IP	ERA	K/9	W-L	FIP	WARP
1989	Jeff Ballard	215.1	3.43	2.6	18-8	4.09	1.7
1990	Tom Browning	227.2	3.80	3.9	15-9	4.06	3.2
1991	Bill Gullickson	226.1	3.90	3.6	20-9	4.01	2.4
1992	Bob Tewksbury	233.0	2.16	3.5	16-5	3.13	1.3
1993	Tom Glavine	239.1	3.20	4.5	22-6	3.99	2.5
1994	Ricky Bones	170.2	3.43	3.0	10-9	4.67	0.8
1995	Mark Gubicza	213.1	3.75	3.4	12-14	4.62	0.9
1996	Tim Belcher	238.2	3.92	4.3	15-11	4.76	2.6
1997	Rick Reed	208.1	2.89	4.9	13-9	3.69	2.6
1998	Carlos Perez	241.0	3.59	4.8	11-14	3.96	2.3
1999	Omar Olivares	205.2	4.16	3.7	15-11	4.81	0.5
2000	Kirk Rueter	184.0	3.96	3.5	11-9	4.95	2.1
2001	Joe Mays	233.2	3.16	4.7	17-13	4.32	1.8
2002	Kirk Rueter	203.2	3.23	3.4	14-8	4.35	1.6
2003	Shigetoshi Hasegawa	73.0	1.48	4.0	2-4	3.85	0.7
2003	Brian Anderson	197.2	3.78	4.0	14-11	4.70	0.8
2004	Ryan Drese	207.2	4.20	4.3	14-10	4.21	1.6
2005	Kenny Rogers	195.1	3.46	4.0	14-8	4.10	2.7
2006	Chien-Ming Wang	218.0	3.63	3.1	19-6	3.95	1.2
2007	Aaron Cook	166.0	4.12	3.3	8-7	4.52	1.7
2007	Chien-Ming Wang	199.1	3.70	4.7	19-7	3.86	1.7
2008	Aaron Cook	211.1	3.96	4.1	16-9	3.73	2.5
2009	Mark Buehrle	213.1	3.84	4.4	13-10	4.51	1.7
2010	Mark Buehrle	210.1	4.28	4.2	13-13	3.87	2.8
2011	Mark Buehrle	205.1	3.59	4.8	13-9	4.02	2.1
2012	Scott Diamond	160.2	3.64	4.8	12-8	3.91	0.4

The beauty of awards–aside from their questionable inherent meaning–is that in determining who is the winner, you follow a process. And that process can lead to fascinating questions: Why Browning over Greg Hibbard in 1990? Why not Hipolito Pichardo in 1993? Or Roger Bailey in 1997? Carl Pavano in 2010? Why did I soften my stance on the great Hasegawa/Anderson debate of 2003?

It never ends. Perhaps you have other ideas?

Related Content: Awards, Pitching, Jeff Ballard, Strikeouts

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