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Award Season
2008-11-12 13:50
by Phil Bencomo

As expected, Geovany Soto was voted the NL's Rookie of the Year, nearly unanimously. I should be surprised that a BBWAA voter gave Joey Votto a first place vote over Soto, but then, this is the same group that gave fourth place to a non-rookie.

* * * *

Announced today, Lou Piniella won his third Manager of the Year award. From Cubs.com:

Piniella finished with 15 first-place votes, eight second-place votes and four third-place votes for a total of 103 points, well ahead of the runner-up, Philadelphia's Charlie Manuel, who totaled 67 points.

[...]

The team was successful despite beginning the season with a few experiments. For example, Ryan Dempster was switching from closer to starter and ended up winning a career-high 17 games and finishing sixth in the NL Cy Young voting. Kerry Wood was making the transition from starter to closer and finished with 34 saves.

Regarding that last paragraph, I'd say the Cubs had such regular season success partly because of those experiments. Well done, Lou.

* * * *

Update: Zambrano wins a Silver Slugger.

Comments
2008-11-12 21:02:31
1.   Tripon
Where would you rank Soto on NL catchers?

I got it at the moment:

McCann
Martin
Soto
Doumit.

2008-11-13 06:16:11
2.   Phil Bencomo
1 I'd flip Martin and Soto. Geo's got the better bat (.288 EqA and 120 OPS+ vs. .283 EqA and 106 OPS+), and, judging by the defensive metrics out there, their defense is a wash.

But that could just be my bias speaking. ;)

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