October 9, 2014

BP Unfiltered

IBA Update: October 9

by Craig Goldstein

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang, but with no baseball

What the [redacted] are we supposed to do. TWO straight days of no baseball is pure and utter devilry. I can’t imagine what the November is going to be li-

/drops what he’s holding

/takes off glasses

“Winter is coming.”

/drops to knees and cries

Let’s get right into the awards discussion because there’s little else to rant or rave over. Today’s edition will get into the NL Rookie of the Year voting, and it’s dominated by two names at the top. Jacob deGrom and Billy Hamilton. As it stands now, deGrom has a healthy ~900 point lead, and it’s arguable it shouldn’t even be that close. He was stellar throughout the year while Hamilton excelled at two things: rangy defense and swiping bases in volume, if not efficiency.

deGrom appears on 25 more ballots overall, and earned 211 additional first place votes. Others receiving more than two first place votes include: Ender Inciarte, Travid d’Arnaud, Joe Panik, and Kyle Hendricks. People we need to keep in our thoughts and prayers include the poor souls who voted Zach Walters, Tommy La Stella, Jimmy Nelson, and Neil Ramirez as first place finishers for the Rookie of the Year award.

Rafael Montero pitched in 10 games, had a 4.06 ERA and received a fourth place vote. Tony Sanchez compiled a 660 OPS in 80 plate appearances and received one third place vote. Mke Olt OPSed 604 while hitting .160 (kinda impressive?) and received a third and a fifth place vote. Christian Bethancourt played in 31 games, posted an OPS 45 percent worse than league average, likely played superlative defense, and received one fourth, and two fifth place votes.

If you can figure those out, you let me know cause I’ve got nothing.

I am a bit surprised by the love that Inciarte has received, especially given the sterling number of Ken Giles, and the significantly better offensive profile of his teammate David Peralta. Inciarte’s defense is highly praised and gives credence to his presence, but that was an initial surprise upon my initial viewing.

The top 20 are below, with updates on the rest as usual. Remember that you can knock Inciarte from his third place perch by voting for Giles (or others) here.

Rank	Player	Points
1	Jacob deGrom	3282
2	Billy Hamilton	2360
3	Ender Inciarte	525
4	Ken Giles	466
5	Kolten Wong	424
6	Travis d'Arnaud	383
7	Joe Panik	237
8	Kyle Hendricks	197
9	Tyler Matzek	130
10	Gregory Polanco	109
11	Chris Owings	101
12	Jorge Soler	94
13	David Peralta	69
14	Yangervis Solarte	64
15	Arismendy Alcantara	52
16	Jeurys Familia	51
17	Jesse Hahn	50
18	Javier Baez	45
19	Carlos Martinez	35
20	Neil Ramirez	32

NL Player of the Year

Rank	Player
1	Clayton Kershaw
2	Andrew McCutchen
3	Giancarlo Stanton

NL Pitcher of the Year

Rank	Player
1	Clayton Kershaw
2	Adam Wainwright
3	Johnny Cueto

NL Manager of the Year

Rank	Player
1	Clint Hurdle

AL Player of the Year

Rank	Player
1	Mike Trout
2	Michael Brantley
3	Corey Kluber

AL Pitcher of the Year

Rank	Player
1	Corey Kluber
2	Felix Hernandez
3	Chris Sale

AL Rookie of the Year

Rank	Player
1	Jose Abreu
2	Masahiro Tanaka
3	Dellin Betances

AL Manager of the Year

Rank	Manager
1	Buck Showalter

Craig Goldstein is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @cdgoldstein
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