Monday, November 3, 2014

Brantley Finishes 7th in FanGraphs' 2014 Player Of The Year Vote

today, on November 3, it was announced that Michael Brantley finished 7th in the FanGraphs 2014 Player of the Year vote! add that to the ever-growing long list of career firsts that Michael has obtained in 2014! =D

FanGraphs' POTY is a new award that was just started this year. it was created as a way to honor the player who performed at the highest level in Major League Baseball. this particular award recognizes the most outstanding performer of the season without splitting up leagues and player types.

the FanGraphs player of the year award is voted on by 10 authors at FanGraphs. one additional ballot is comprised of votes by FanGraphs readers. so in total, there are 11 ballots of votes.

here are the complete POTY voting results:

Player Ballots Avg Rank Avg Score
Clayton Kershaw 11 1.5 77.3
Mike Trout 11 1.7 75.3
Andrew McCutchen 11 3.4 52.6
Corey Kluber 11 5.6 34.5
Jonathan Lucroy 10 6.0 32.6
Giancarlo Stanton 10 6.1 28.9
Michael Brantley 11 6.6 25.0
Felix Hernandez 8 6.8 19.1
Anthony Rendon 6 7.3 11.9
Jose Bautista 6 8.3 11.1
Buster Posey 5 8.0 8.6
Chris Sale 6 9.0 6.4
Josh Donaldson 2 8.5 3.2
Alex Gordon 1 9.0 0.9
Victor Martinez 1 9.0 0.5
**chart copy and pasted from FanGraphs website

according to this, Michael was on all 11 ballots that were cast. as usual though, i think some of these rankings are off. first of all, i find it odd that not one person voted for the guy who won the AL batting title--Jose Altuve. then there's Alex Gordon, who's the favorite to win the left field Gold Glove this year, along with Victor Martinez, who had the 2nd highest BA in the American League. somehow both of these players were only on 1 of 11 ballots. i'm not even going to get into the rest of the voting break downs.

i honestly don't like awards that are structured like this, grouping everyone in baseball together. each league has its own best player. i don't think the AL and NL should be combined and competing for top billing. also, you guys who have been reading my blogs for the last couple years know that i think pitchers and hitters should be awarded for their work separately. when you put them all together, that's when these rankings can be skewed because you have to compare everybody and almost literally pick favorites. i mean, doesn't it seem strange to see Corey Kluber finish 4th and Felix Hernandez finish 4 places underneath him?

speaking of Kluber, it's somewhat shocking to me that he finished so high and ahead of Michael. not every voter had Corey above Michael, but enough did so that the final results placed him 4th. (if you want to see who each voter included on their ballot, their rankings, and explanations for their rankings, click here.) can't say i'm too happy that Michael's teammate was viewed as more valuable than Michael in this vote.

now let's do some comparisons. if we weigh this POTY list against Sporting News' 2014 POTY vote, Michael again finished 7th. however, Corey Kluber was nowhere to be found in SN's top 10. and keep in mind, the SN list was voted on by major league players. essentially, this FanGraphs award was voted on by fans and bloggers. if faced with the choice, i'm going to put a little more stock into who the players think is POTY over fans and bloggers who could very well be biased (like i am LOL).

and looking back at Baseball Bloggers Alliance's 2014 Stan Musial Award, Michael finished 2nd, 2 places above Corey. granted those were American League specific results, but they still had Michael ahead of Corey. just saying.

in the grand scheme of things, this is another of one those awards that's really not something to get all worked up about. it's nice that Michael finished 7th on this list and while i don't necessarily agree with that, i'm still happy for and proud of him. the fact that he continues to even place on all these lists is a great accomplishment.

tomorrow we find out the winners of the Gold Gloves and if Michael won for left field or not. then on November 13, the results of MLB's AL MVP come out. those are 2 awards that i'm very anxious to see the results of. until then...

congratulations once again to Michael on being recognized for his amazing 2014 season!

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