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SB Nation Awards: Rookie of the Year and NL Cy Young

As is traditional, the SB Nation sites had their own balloting to determine the network awards for the National and American League. Voting on behalf of the SnakePit this year were soco and 'Skins; after the jump you'll find the results for the two Rookie of the Year awards, with more depth on the NL one, obviously, and also the National League Cy Young award [SBNation does not, it appear, fear the wrath of the BBWAA...]. Because of this, I've shunted the weekly round-table discussion till tomorrow. I'm sure our two elected representatives will be along shortly to provide their ballots and explain themselves...

Rookie of the Year


1st 2nd 3rd Points
Heyward 20 11
133
Posey 12 18 2 116
Garcia
1 12 15
Castro
1 3 6
Stanton

6 6
Sanchez
1 2 5
Davis

4 4
Hudson

1 1
Johnson

1 1
Chacin

1 1

Like the BBWAA awards, this was basically a two-man race, with Buster Posey and Jason Heyward dominating proceedings. Unlike those, however, Heyward's contribution over the course of the season was seen as superior to Posey's value as a catcher [though, with hindsight, Giants management got it spot on with their decision as to when Posey should be called up]. Posey was named on all 32 ballots but, again as in the BBWAA award, Heyward was left off one ballot. I'm looking forward to seeing an explanation for that one.

I won't list the American League numbers in detail, because if you're like me, you probably have little or no idea who most of these people are. But it was an even closer race than in the AL. Austin Jackson of the Tigers pipping the Rangers' Neftali Feliz by a mere three points, even though Jackson received only 11 first-place votes to Neftali Feliz's 13. But overall, Jackson got 96 points to Feliz's 93. Third and fourth place went to Brian Matusz and Danny Valencia, respectively. As in the NL, the BBWAA reversed the top two positions, giving it to Feliz - the second consecutive year in the AL the prize has gone to a reliever.

Cy Young Award


1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Points
Halladay 33



231
Wainwright
16 5 10 2 101
Jimenez
8 16 5 1 91
Johnson
7 9 9 5 78
Lincecum
2 2 4 8 30
Hudson


2 5 9
Latos

1 2 1 8
Oswalt


1 4 6
Kershaw



3 3
Hamels



2 2
Marmol



1 1
Garcia



1 1

This hardly counts as a surprise. The Cy Young award winner mirrored precisely that of the BBWAA, with Roy Halladay the unanimous choice of all the voters. Adam Wainwright and Ubaldo Jimenez rounded out the top three for both awards, though Tim Lincecum received a good deal more love from SB Nation, finishing fifth and being mentioned on eight ballots, compared to only two for the BBWAA. Not much mention of any Diamondbacks from either set of voters, which is not really surprising, especially with the top two in rookie voting close to an utter lock, and an ERA of three needed for Cy Young consideration.

Rather than three names per voter as in the BBWAA, the SB Nation awards were expanded to five votes per ballot, with a 7/4/3/2/1 points system. This was instituted as a way to get more pitchers some ballot recognition. Also note that in addition to two votes per blog, non-team specific sites like Beyond the Box Score got to chip in, hence the total number cast being 33. The SB Nation AL Cy Young award will be announced Thursday [though having seen the results, it wasn't a good deal closer]. The MVPs will be next Monday (NL) and Tuesday (AL), but someone else will need to post the former as that's the day we move our furniture to SnakePit Towers 2.0...