{"id":8681,"date":"2010-10-18T12:44:50","date_gmt":"2010-10-18T19:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/?p=8681"},"modified":"2010-10-19T08:22:41","modified_gmt":"2010-10-19T15:22:41","slug":"buster-posey-neftali-feliz-win-two-man-races-for-willie-mays-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/18\/buster-posey-neftali-feliz-win-two-man-races-for-willie-mays-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Buster Posey, Neftali Feliz Win Two-Man Races For Willie Mays Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Baseball<\/a>The battle for the Willie Mays Award, given by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance to the top rookie in each division, turned out to be a two-man affair in both leagues, with Texas Rangers closer Neftali Feliz and San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey finishing solidly ahead of their closest competition, Detroit Tigers outfielder Austin Jackson and Atlanta Braves outfielder Jason Heyward, respectively.<\/p>\n

Feliz posted a 2.73 ERA and a 0.88 WHIP while tallying 40 saves and helping Texas into the postseason for the first time since 1999. Feliz only blew three save opportunities while fashioning a 3.94 strikeout to walk ratio.<\/p>\n

Feliz garnered eighteen first-place votes and 102 points overall, finishing 22 points ahead of Jackson, who received six nods at the top of the ballot.<\/p>\n

Posey did not begin the season in the major leagues, but did so much with his time in San Francisco that voters selected him as the National League\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top rookie. Posey hit .305 and slugged .505 in just 108 games, tallying 18 home runs and 67 RBI after his callup at the end of May. Posey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s offense helped San Francisco make up ground and eventually pass San Diego for the divisional crown.<\/p>\n

Posey received 103 total points, including fifteen first-place selections, to outpace Heyward by 17 points. Heyward received ten first-place votes for his work in helping Atlanta secure the National League Wild Card.<\/p>\n

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

American League<\/p>\n

Neftali Feliz, Texas (18) 102
\nAustin Jackson, Detroit (6) 78
\nDanny Valencia, Minnesota 16
\nBrian Matusz, Baltimore (1) 12
\nBrennan Boesch, Detroit 11
\nWade Davis, Tampa Bay 3
\nJohn Jaso, Tampa Bay 3<\/p>\n

National League<\/p>\n

Buster Posey, San Francisco (15) 103
\nJason Heyward, Atlanta (10) 86
\nJaime Garcia, St. Louis 20
\nStarlin Castro, Chicago 7
\nIke Davis, New York 7
\nGaby Sanchez, Florida (1) 6
\nTyler Colvin, Chicago 2
\nMike Stanton, Florida 2
\nNeil Walker, Pittsburgh 2<\/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 233blogs 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153chapters\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153group ballot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was posted, accounting for both of their votes.<\/p>\n

Ballots are posted on the respective blogs and tabulated on a 5-3-1 point scale for first, second and third. 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<\/p>\n

Camden Crazies (Baltimore)*
\nBoston Red Thoughts (Boston)*
\nThe Tribe Daily (Cleveland)*
\nDetroit Tigers Scorecard (Detroit)
\nSwitch Hitting Pitchers (Detroit)
\nOne Royal Way (Kansas City)
\nSeth Speaks (Minnesota)
\nTwins Target (Minnesota)
\nBronx Baseball Daily (New York)*
\nContract Year (Oakland)
\nRise of the Rays (Tampa Bay)
\nTampa Bay Rays News (Tampa Bay)
\nBaseball Is My Boyfriend (Texas)*
\nThe Blue Jay Hunter (Toronto)
\n500 Level Fan (Toronto)
\nAdvanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)*
\nMisc. Baseball (History)*
\nVictoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)*
\nBlogging From The Bleachers (General)*<\/p>\n

National League<\/p>\n

Prose and Ivy (Chicago)*
\nCincinnati Reds Blog (Cincinnati)
\nMarlin Maniac (Florida)
\nMarlins Diehards (Florida)
\nFeeling Dodger Blue (Los Angeles)
\nBernie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Crew (Milwaukee)*
\nBrewers Bar (Milwaukee)*
\nThe Eddie Kranepool Society (New York)*
\nDugger\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Corner (Philadelphia)
\nPhighting On (Philadelphia)
\nWhere Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? (Pittsburgh)*
\ni70 Baseball (St. Louis)
\nPitchers Hit Eighth (St. Louis)
\nFriar Forecast (San Diego)*
\n22gigantes (San Francisco)*
\nAdvanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)*
\nMisc. Baseball (History)*
\nVictoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)*
\nBlogging From The Bleachers (General)*
\nRon Kaplan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Baseball Bookshelf (Miscellaneous)*<\/p>\n

Ballots that were unofficial or helped make up their chapter ballot:<\/p>\n

Bottom Line Sox (Boston)
\nRaise the Jolly Roger (Pittsburgh)
\nThe Crazy Crabbers (San Francisco)
\nStan Musial\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Stance (St. Louis–unofficial)<\/p>\n

Prior Winners<\/p>\n

2009: Andrew Bailey, Oakland; Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh<\/p>\n

The official website of the BBA is located at www.baseballbloggersalliance.com<\/a>. The BBA can be found on Twitter by the handle @baseballblogs and by the hashmark #bbba. Members of the BBA may be heard at Blog Talk Radio every Tuesday night with their call-in show, BBA Baseball Talk, which may also be downloaded as a podcast from iTunes. For more information, contact Daniel Shoptaw at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The battle for the Willie Mays Award, given by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance to the top rookie in each division, turned out to be a two-man affair in both leagues, with Texas Rangers closer Neftali Feliz and San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey finishing solidly ahead of their closest competition, Detroit Tigers outfielder Austin Jackson […]<\/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":[471,8850,10848,11666,11668,270,212,461,5117,11663,11667,1990,61,11661,8926,891,11662,11664,11665,56],"class_list":["post-8681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-brennan-boesch","tag-buster-posey","tag-callup","tag-chicago-7","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-jaime-garcia","tag-jason-heyward","tag-mike-stanton","tag-neftali-feliz","tag-neil-walker","tag-place-votes","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-stanton-florida","tag-starlin","tag-texas-rangers","tag-time-in-san-francisco","tag-tyler-colvin","tag-wade-davis","tag-willie-mays"],"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