SB Nation Baseball Awards: Rookie of the Year

by Eric Simon on Nov 4, 2008 2:42 PM EST

In advance of the BBWAA end-of-season crapfest, SB Nation baseball held its own postseason awards, which we hope will set the bar pretty high in terms of somewhat arbitrary awards voting. There's a pretty good mix of folks among our 33 baseball sites, with varying degrees of statistical inclination. As with the BBWAA awards, the voting for our awards took place after the season ended but before the playoffs began, so performances in the postseason had no bearing on the results.

Today we have the Rookie of the Year awards. My ballot:

Geovany Soto, C - CHC
Joey Votto, 1B - CIN
Jair Jurrjens, SP - ATL

Here are the full results. The rest of the awards will be posted throughout the remainder of the week, culminating with the MVP awards on Thursday.

National League	1st	2nd	3rd	Points
Geovany Soto	18	1	-	93
Joey Votto	-	10	8	38
Jair Jurrjens	1	6	6	29
Edinson Volquez	-	1	-	3
Jay Bruce	-	1	-	3
Ian Stewart	-	-	2	4
John Bowker	-	-	1	1
Johnny Cueto	-	-	1	1
Blake DeWitt	-	-	1	1

American League	1st	2nd	3rd	Points
Evan Longoria	15	1	-	78
Mike Aviles	1	5	4	24
Alexei Ramirez	1	2	3	14
Armando Galarraga	-	3	3	12
Joba Chamberlain	-	3	1	10
Jacoby Ellsbury	-	1	2	5
Brad Ziegler	-	1	1	4
David Murphy	-	1	-	3
Denard Span	-	-	2	2
Chris Davis	-	-	1	1

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Comments

Soto was a no brainer

but I’m a bit surprised at Votto over Jair. Votto had a slightly higher VORP, but Jair is two younger and was flat out dominate before the all-star break before fading a bit in the second half which if you are a Braves fan was because of his arm being tired as a 22 year old pitching over his first full season or if you’re me hoping the league figured him out.

by Sokojoe on Nov 4, 2008 3:14 PM EST reply actions

What does age have to do with it?

by Eric Simon on Nov 4, 2008 4:08 PM EST up reply actions

Nothing

Just kind of pointing that out that I was surprised to see Votto over Jair, not that I disagree. Because Jair was younger and a Cy Young candidate over the first half, post-season awards, even the numerical number minded ones, tend to give extra points to younger players to break tiebreakers or seems to give extra credit for a hot start/big finish.

by Sokojoe on Nov 4, 2008 4:29 PM EST up reply actions