2023 SnakePit Awards: Play of the Year nominations

Well, the nominations post was exactly the chaotic mess I was hoping to see! Almost inevitable given this is always the trickiest one to manage. In the regular season alone, there were over twelve thousand plays for the D-backs this season. While the bulk were inevitably forgettable, even by their mothers, a mere 1% of those would still leave you with one hundred and twenty candidates. We have, somehow, got it down to just five, and five more from the post-season. I’m with chronicles_of_the_desert: “Watching all these incredible moments is awesome. I literally got chills watching some of those postseason moments. I don’t care too much which play wins, I could probably pick ten I’d be happy with.”

In the end though, the tribe spoke fairly well, with five post-season and four regular season moments getting enough recs to turn Sedona Red. All of those are included below. There were then two regular season plays with three recs, and I made an executive decision to include them both. So, in the end, you get eleven plays. Here we go! As usual, voting will be limited to registered SnakePit members to prevent ballot-box stuffing, and the winners will be announced this weekend.

Regular season play of the year

Jake McCarthy’s incredible catch, April 4

Jose Herrera nabs Baez at third, June 9

Nick Ahmed’s dazzling play, June 28

Lourdes Gurriell Jr. to Geraldo Perdomo to Gabriel Moreno, July 8

Alek Thomas’ lunging grab, August 22

Gabriel Moreno 13th-inning walk-off, September 16

Post-season play of the year

Evan Longoria catch into double-play, NLWC

Zac Gallen buckles Freddie Freeman, NLDS

Gabriel Moreno homers, then doesn’t, then homers again, NLDS

Alek Thomas, game-tying PH home-run, NLCS

Christian Walker bare-handed stop, World Series

Random point. I was going to make a showcase reel of all the nominees, but for whatever reason, MLB limits those to ten plays. So someone would miss out. :( When the results are in, whoever gets the fewest votes will be eliminated, with the other ten going on to form the official SnakePit highlight reel for 2023. I’ll post that with the winner.