{"id":17986,"date":"2011-10-23T00:03:08","date_gmt":"2011-10-23T07:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seamheads.com\/?p=17986"},"modified":"2011-10-28T12:51:42","modified_gmt":"2011-10-28T19:51:42","slug":"justin-verlander-clayton-kershaw-named-walter-johnson-award-winners-by-the-baseball-bloggers-alliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/23\/justin-verlander-clayton-kershaw-named-walter-johnson-award-winners-by-the-baseball-bloggers-alliance\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw Named Walter Johnson Award Winners by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can debate whether Justin Verlander should be win the “best player in the league” award.  There was no debate on if he’d win the “best pitcher” version.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Detroit Tiger ace was an unanimous selection for the Walter Johnson Award, given out by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.  Verlander was the top name on all 21 ballots, easily outdistancing Los Angeles of Anaheim starter Jered Weaver.  Weaver was a distant second, 80 points behind Verlander.  New York Yankees ace CC Sabathia came in third.<\/p>\n

On the National League side, results were a little bit closer.  Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw beat out Philadelphia Phillies ace Roy Halladay 137-112.  Kershaw received 15 first place nods, while Halladay garnered eight.  Halladay’s teammate, Cliff Lee, finished in the show position.<\/p>\n

The complete voting results are as follows (first place votes in parenthesis):<\/p>\n

American League
\nJustin Verlander, Detroit (21) 147
\nJered Weaver, Los Angeles of Anaheim 67
\nCC Sabathia, New York 58
\nJames Shields, Tampa Bay 40
\nDan Haren, Los Angeles of Anaheim 20
\nCJ Wilson, Texas 9
\nJosh Beckett, Boston 6
\nRicky Romero, Toronto 5
\nFelix Hernandez, Seattle 2
\nDoug Fister, Detroit 1
\nBrandon McCarthy, Oakland 1
\nDavid Price, Tampa Bay 1<\/p>\n

National League
\nClayton Kershaw, Los Angeles (15) 137
\nRoy Halladay, Philadelphia (8) 112
\nCliff Lee, Philadelphia 69
\nIan Kennedy, Arizona 38
\nCole Hamels, Philadelphia 9
\nMadison Bumgarner, San Francisco 7
\nTim Lincecum, San Francisco 7
\nMatt Cain, San Francisco 3
\nCraig Kimbrel, Atlanta 3
\nDillon Gee, New York 2
\nRyan Vogelsong, San Francisco 2
\nJohnny Cueto, Cincinnati 1
\nJair Jurrjens, Atlanta 1<\/p>\n

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally. As of this writing, the organization consists of 316 blogs<\/a> spanning all 30 major league squads as well as general baseball writing.<\/p>\n

The BBA is organized under a similar structure as the Baseball Writers of America, where blogs that follow the same team are combined into “chapters” and only two votes from the chapter on an award are counted. The blog chapters that are focused on general baseball were allowed two votes as well, which they could use both on the same league or split between the two leagues.<\/p>\n

Chapters generally followed one of two methods when casting their ballot.  Either representatives of the chapter were given the ballots for voting or a “group ballot” was posted, accounting for both of their votes.<\/p>\n

Notably, though the Alliance’s awards come out well before their official counterparts, the BBA selections have matched those of the Baseball Writers of America in all but two instances in the past two years.  This, of course, does not include the Goose Gossage Award that is exclusive to the BBA.<\/p>\n

Ballots are posted on the respective blogs and for this award, were tabulated on a 7-4-3-2-1 point scale for first through fith place. In the interest of transparency, links are given below for the ballots. Chapter affiliation is in parenthesis.  Those chapters that decided on the group method are noted with an asterisk.<\/p>\n

American League
\nAdvanced Fantasy Baseball<\/a> (Fantasy)
\nBaltimore Sports and Life<\/a> (Baltimore)
\nBoston Red Thoughts<\/a> (Boston)*
\nCamden Crazies<\/a> (Baltimore)
\nContract Year<\/a> (Oakland)*
\nDetroit Tigers Scorecard Blog<\/a> (Detroit)
\n500 Level Fan<\/a> (Toronto)
\nThe Flagrant Fan<\/a> (General)
\nInfield Fly<\/a> (Toronto)
\nLady At The Bat<\/a> (New York)
\nMisc. Baseball<\/a> (History)
\nNorth Dakota Twins Fan<\/a> (Minnesota)
\nOld English D<\/a> (Detroit)
\nThe Rays Rant<\/a> (Tampa Bay)
\nSeattle Mariners Musings<\/a> (Seattle)
\nSeedlings To Stars<\/a> (Other)
\nThe Tribe Daily<\/a> (Cleveland)*
\nTwins Trivia<\/a> (Minnesota)<\/p>\n

National League
\nAdvanced Fantasy Baseball<\/a> (Fantasy)
\nAppy Astros<\/a> (Houston)
\nBernie’s Crew<\/a> (Milwaukee)*
\nBlog Red Machine<\/a> (Cincinnati)
\nCincinnati Reds Blog<\/a> (Cincinnati)
\nC70 At The Bat<\/a> (St. Louis)
\nDugger Sports<\/a> (Philadelphia)
\nThe Eddie Kranepool Society<\/a> (New York)
\nThe Flagrant Fan<\/a> (General)
\nMisc. Baseball<\/a> (History)
\nNorth Side Notch<\/a> (Pittsburgh)
\nPadres Trail<\/a> (San Diego)
\nPhils Baseball<\/a> (Philadelphia)
\nPitchers Hit Eighth<\/a> (St. Louis)
\nProse and Ivy<\/a> (Chicago)*
\nRaise The Jolly Roger<\/a> (Pittsburgh)
\nRockies Woman<\/a> (Colorado)
\n22 Gigantes<\/a> (San Francisco)
\nVictoria Seals Baseball Blog<\/a> (Other)<\/p>\n

Prior Winners<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

2010: Felix Hernadez, Seattle; Roy Halladay, Philadelphia
\n2009: Zack Greinke, Kansas City; Tim Lincecum, San Francisco<\/div>\n

The official website of the BBA is located atbaseballbloggersalliance.wordpress.com<\/a>. The BBA can be found on Twitter by the handle @baseballblogs and by the hashmark #bbba.  For more information, contact Daniel Shoptaw at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can debate whether Justin Verlander should be win the “best player in the league” award.  There was no debate on if he’d win the “best pitcher” version. The Detroit Tiger ace was an unanimous selection for the Walter Johnson Award, given out by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.  Verlander was the top name on all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":737,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[16961,2374,478,2195,6555,11879,14280,2314,11225,14676,3568,1184,60,10715,444,466,10731,465,16960,2891],"class_list":["post-17986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-brandon-mccarthy","tag-cc-sabathia","tag-cole-hamels","tag-dan-haren","tag-doug-fister","tag-felix-hernandez-seattle","tag-jair-jurrjens","tag-james-shields","tag-jered-weaver","tag-johnny-cueto","tag-josh-beckett","tag-justin-verlander","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-madison-bumgarner","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-ricky-romero","tag-roy-halladay","tag-ryan-vogelsong","tag-tim-lincecum"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t