Despite the fact that I have been following baseball much less intently than I did in previous years, thanks to another hobby, I'm still running the Sports Mogul Awards as I have for the last few years, and it's time to start the discussion
The goal of this thread is to assemble a general list of candidates for each of the more "esoteric" awards we will be voting on. The standard awards like MVP, Cy Young and such will be left out, as their candidates are more obvious, so to speak, and the criteria is relatively well-defined. This is more geared toward the comeback player and breakout awards and such.
Following is a list of the awards for which I'd like to assemble a list of candidates. Note, though, that come voting time, you're free to vote for anybody, not just the players we list here. This is more to just assist others and get general ideas. I'd like to keep any rankings and such out of this discussion...just focus purely on gathering possible candidates and discussing why or why not they qualify for consideration. I will keep a running list in this post of names that come up and are generally agreed upon.
Award List:
Comeback Player of the Year
Breakout Position Player of the Year
Breakout Pitcher of the Year
Esteban Loaiza Award
Brady Anderson Award
Derrick Turnbow Award
Award Description:
Comeback Player of the Year - Given to a player in each league who has "re-emerged" during the season, be it from a period of poor play or injury-riddled seasons.
Breakout Player of the Year (Position Player/Pitcher) - Given to a non-rookie in each league who has in this season taken the next step into becoming a star Major Leaguer, fulfilling or exceeding expectations held for that player. Candidates should be judged by both excellence in the given year, and expectation to continue that success going forward.
Esteban Loaiza Award - Given to the starting pitcher who performed at a level completely unexpected for that year by most reasonable predictions. Candidates should be judged by both excellence in the given year and also by the unpredictability of said excellence.
Brady Anderson Award - Given to the position player who performed at a level completely unexpected for that year by most reasonable predictions. Candidates should be judged by both excellence in the given year and also by the unpredictability of said excellence.
Derrick Turnbow Award - Given to the relief pitcher who performed at a level completely unexpected for that year by most reasonable predictions. Candidates should be judged by both excellence in the given year and also by the unpredictability of said excellence.
Please use your best judgment separating breakout players from players for the Loaiza/Anderson/Turnbow awards. Breakout players could reasonably be expected to continue succeeding at the level they played at, while candidates for the latter trio of awards should probably be expected to regress heavily in the future. Breakout candidates should have displayed some level of excellence in the near-past (Ben Zobrist 2008) or have the pedigree and youth to back it up (Alex Gordon 2011). For the Loaiza/Anderson/Turnbow award trio, players will generally tend to be veterans or older players that came out of nowhere and shouldn't be expected to continue at that level in the future.
I have started the lists of with players after a quick run-through of the league.
Candidate List: (not separated by league)
Comeback – Adam Lind, James Loney, Stephen Drew, Jacoby Ellsbury, John Lackey, Ervin Santana, Victor Martinez, Chase Utley, Jayson Werth, Francisco Liriano, Jorge de la Rosa
Breakout Position Player – Chris Davis, Manny Machado, Jason Kipnis, Jason Castro, Domonic Brown, Freddie Freeman, Jean Segura, Carlos Gomez, Starling Marte, Paul Goldschmidt, Josh Donaldson, Matt Carpenter, Kyle Seager,
Breakout Pitcher – Chris Tillman, Felix Doubront, Max Scherzer, Anibal Sanchez, Derek Holland, Yu Darvish, Matt Harvey, Mike Minor, Patrick Corbin
Esteban Loaiza - Anibal Sanchez,
Brady Anderson – Chris Davis, Ryan Raburn, Josh Donaldson, Marlon Byrd, Dioner Navarro, Nate Schierholtz,
Derrick Turnbow - Jesse Crain, Luke Hochevar, Joaquin Benoit, Jose Veras, Neal Cotts, David Carpenter, Jim Henderson, Mark Melancon, Edward Mujica, Will Harris
Note: You may think that a player listed under the Breakout category more accurately fits into one of the latter three awards. Come voting time, you're of course free to use your judgment when deciding what players belong under which category. Due to the nature of the awards, it doesn't make sense to think that a player qualifies for both the Breakout award and the Brady Anderson award, but you may think that he belongs under the Breakout category while somebody else thinks he belongs in the Anderson category, which is fine. When voting, place the players where you feel they most accurately belong.
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Originally Posted by HoustonGM
