BBA General Chapter Announces Vote for NL Stan Musial Award
Each year the Baseball Bloggers Alliance votes on and chooses our own winners for each of the year’s major awards. As President of the General Chapter, it is my privilege to announce the Chapter’s choice for each award winner. Today we’ll look at the Stan Musial Award, given to the top player for each league. First up, we’ll look at the National League.
Ballots were to be completed with votes 1 through 10. Votes were then tabulated on a 13-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 scale. Each blog within the General Chapter of the BBA was invited to submit a ballot for the award. Ballots were subsequently submitted by the following members: TG Sports Thoughts, Wezen-Ball, The Straw That Stirs The Drink, Going Yard, The Flagrant Fan, Diamond Hoggers, Call To The Pen, Jason’s Baseball Blog, Off Base Percentage, The Golden Sombrero, Rhino Rant, and Blogging From The Bleachers.
The National League race for the Stan Musial Award was mostly a three man chase. Over the last two months of the season all eyes followed Cincinnati’s Joey Votto, St. Louis’ Albert Pujols, and Colorado’s Carlos Gonzalez as they chased the playoffs and potentially a Triple Crown. Votto would be the only one to reach the playoffs as both St. Louis and Colorado fell short in the final weeks. As for the Triple Crown, almost as quickly as everyone started to discuss whether or not someone could actually achieve it the chances of it happening ceased as the players started to separate themselves.
Pujols would finish the season with a .312/.414/.596 line with 42 HRs and 118 RBI. He would lead the NL in HR, RBI, runs, and intentional walks. He had won the two previous MVP Awards but a third consecutive appears just out of reach as Pujols finished second in our voting.
Gonzalez would finish the season with a .336/.376/.598 line with 34 HRs and 117 RBI. He would win the NL batting title and led the league in hits and total bases. It was truly a breakout year for Gonzalez as he started to show what scouts have expected from him for a number of years. His emergence also showed that Colorado finally has a legitimate bat to pair with Troy Tulowitski in the middle of the Rockie lineup.
Votto, while not only leading the Reds to an NL Central title, finished the season with a .324/.424/.600 line with 37 HRs and 113 RBI. Votto led the league the OBS, SLG, OPS, OPS+, and finished second in batting and HRs. Overall he was the most impressive player from an offensive standpoint in the National League.
As such, Votto was unanimously named as the winner of the National League’s Stan Musial Award by the General Chapter of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th | Total Points | |
| 12 | 156 | Joey Votto | |||||||||
| 8 | 3 | 96 | Albert Pujols | ||||||||
| 2 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 73 | Carlos Gonzalez | |||||
| 1 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 58 | Troy Tulowitski | ||||
| 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 44 | Adrian Gonzalez | |||||
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 33 | Ryan Zimmerman | |||||
| 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 38 | Roy Halladay | |||||
| 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 30 | Matt Holliday | |||||
| 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 21 | Aubrey Huff | ||||||
| 1 | 1 | 13 | Jayson Werth | ||||||||
| 1 | 1 | 9 | Martin Prado | ||||||||
| 2 | 1 | 7 | Jason Heyward | ||||||||
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | Brian McCann | |||||||
| 1 | 1 | 5 | Adam Wainwright | ||||||||
| 1 | 5 | David Wright | |||||||||
| 2 | 1 | 5 | Jay Bruce | ||||||||
| 1 | 4 | Scott Rolen | |||||||||
| 1 | 4 | Dan Uggla | |||||||||
| 1 | 4 | Mat Latos | |||||||||
| 1 | 1 | 4 | Rickie Weeks | ||||||||
| 1 | 2 | Ryan Braun | |||||||||
| 1 | 2 | Ubaldo Jimenez | |||||||||
| 1 | 2 | Hanley Ramirez | |||||||||
| 1 | 2 | Brian Wilson | |||||||||
| 1 | 1 | Ryan Howard | |||||||||
| 1 | 1 | Tim Hudson |
Blogging From The Bleachers 