Cubs Awards

I think they're on the verge of announcing the N.L. Rookie of the Year and Randy Wells was in the running for most of the season. Ultimately I don't think he'll get more than a few third place votes from the Chicago writers and I don't have much time to put together a full analysis, so I'm just going to lazily look at WAR values over at Fangraphs.

Randy Wells - 3.0

Garrett Jones - 2.6

J.A. Happ - 1.8

Chris Coghlan - 2.3

Andrew McCutchen - 3.4

Tommy Hanson - 2.6

Casey McGehee - 2.2

Colby Rasmus - 2.3

My guess is that it ends up Hanson, McCutchen, Happ by the voters and I would certainly encourage a more robust analysis than just WAR values, but there you have it. The Internet Baseball Awards voted Hanson the winner with Wells finishing 8th, for what it's worth.

On the AL side,  Elvis Andrus and Rick Porcello seem to be getting the most press with Andrew Bailey also in the mix.  Fangraphs has Andrus at 3.0 WAR, Porcello at 1.8 and Bailey at 2.4. Pitchers Jeff Niemann(3.2 WAR) and Brett Anderson(3.8 WAR) both surpass Porcello by WAR values but don't seem to be getting much hype. My guess is the voters give it to Porcello as most of Andrus's value came from his glove. Porcello got the nod at the Internet Baseball Awards.

Lou Piniella won he NL Manager of the Year award today. Always a curious award that seems to honor lowered expectations than actual managing skill. Nonetheless, Piniella takes the honor and will likely just dump it into the spare closet as I'm sure he couldn't care less after the playoff debacle.

He would have probably gotten my first place vote as I thought the Cubs were about an 88-win team to start the year, so the Cubs certainly exceeded my expactations. Tony LaRussa was the only other manager that probably deserved some first place votes, but he finished 5th in the voting.