DC-IBWA 2011 Player Awards Voting

As humble information managers (read: librarian & records manager) in our day jobs, it delights us to no end to have our little blog be called an “online media outlet” in the company of some fantastic Nationals baseball blogs.  Even more enjoyable is being able to participate in the biannual rites of prediction-making and survey-taking that we milk for as many posts as we can.  The most recent of these was the 2011 DC-Internet Baseball Writers Association Player Achievement Awards.  Want to know how we voted, and why we chose who we did?  Then read on.  We’ll be presenting our first, second, and third place choices, along with the consensus winners of the award from the DC-IBWA.

Goose Goslin MVP: Michael Morse
First Ladies’ Choice: Morse/Zimmerman/Espinosa

Has any player meant as much to the Nationals this year as Michael Morse?  Not only did he hit a lot of home runs, but he managed to knock in a lot of runs, and play good defense at both 1B and LF, but he cheered the spirits of Natstown with his catchy at-bat music and initiation into the joys of “Beast Mode”.

Walter Johnson Starting Pitcher of the Year: Jordan Zimmermann
First Ladies’ Choice: Zimmermann/Lannan/Strasburg

Recovering from Tommy John surgery is a very big deal.  Recovering and thriving the way that Jordan Zimmermann did is nothing short of fantastic.  He has definitely earned his place in next year’s rotation.

Frederick “Firpo” Marberry RP: Tyler Clippard
First Ladies’ Choice: Clippard/Storen/Coffey

Who else would we choose?  If you look at his stat line for this year, it’s just ridiculous.  Clippard more than deserved his spot as an All-Star, and proved it from March to September.

Sam Rice Hitter of the Year: Michael Morse
First Ladies’ Choice: Morse/Zimmerman/Desmond

This award is for “all-around hitting, situational hitting and baserunning”.  Well, if you look at the National League batting average leaderboard, who sits at number 9 this year?  Michael Morse.  In fact, go to the National League batting leaders page of Baseball Reference, and do a Ctrl-F search for “Morse”, and his name comes up a LOT, and not in any embarassing categories either (I’m looking at Espinosa and Werth in Strikeouts).  Seriously good stuff.

Frank Howard Slugger of the Year: Michael Morse
First Ladies’ Choice: Morse/Zimmerman/Ramos

How many times can we lavish praise on Mikey-Mo?  One more official award will do.  When you’re on the big board for Slugging, OPS, Home Runs, Doubles and Extra Base Hits…that’s the very definition of a slugger of the year.

Joe Judge Defensive Player of the Year: Danny Espinosa
First Ladies’ Choice: Espinosa/Ankiel/Ramos

This is the time on FLoB where we remind ourselves that Danny Espinosa is a ROOKIE.  Yes, he made quite a few errors, but how many other seemingly impossible defensive plays did he treat Nats fans to this season?

Mickey Vernon Comeback Player of the Year: Jordan Zimmermann
First Ladies’ Choice: Strasburg/Wang/Zimmermann

Here is the first place where the First Ladies differ from the final standings, and from the voting tally, we weren’t the only ones who thought Stephen Strasburg belonged at the top of the comeback standings.  Our reasoning for putting Stras as our first place vote is simple: 1 year ago at this time, Stephen was recovering from Tommy John surgery.  In less than a year, he came back, lit up the minor leagues, and showed the Nationals that he is back and perhaps a little wiser than before.


Josh Gibson Humanitarian Award: Ian Desmond
First Ladies’ Choice: Desmond/Zimmerman/Lannan

Ian Desmond is this year’s nominee from the Washington Nationals for the Roberto Clemente award, which is given for positive contributions both on and off the field.  Desmond has given so much back to the DC community, a fact that is evident in the predominance of his face at Nationals community events.  Surely there are easier ways for a young father to spend his free time and off days, but Ian simply proves that he is more than deserving of this award.

Minor League Player of the Year: Bryce Harper
First Ladies’ Choice: Lombardozzi/Peacock/Harper

One last award where the First Ladies didn’t go with the crowd.  Yes, Harper was the obvious choice, but as good as he’s been, he’s still young, and he didn’t get past AA-ball this year (a purposeful decision by the Nats management).  Instead, we went with Maggie’s gut instinct of Steve Lombardozzi, who despite a potentially disappointing month in the MLB, displayed spectacular potential in both Harrisburg and Syracuse.  We look forward to seeing Steve develop.

Biggest Surprise: Michael Morse
First Ladies’ Choice: Morse (seconded by Coffey’s enthusiastic running)

There are few among us who once the regular season started were saying that Michael Morse would be the biggest contributor to the Nationals this season.  Oh, how he proved us wrong.

Biggest Disappointment: Jayson Werth
First Ladies’ Choice: Werth

Jayson Werth made 10 million dollars this year.  As an outfielder, was he worth that?  Not really.  As a batter, was he worth it?  Definitely not.  Here’s hoping this was just a fluke, and that he proves his mettle in the years to come.

Will Ryan Zimmerman sign a contract extention before end of 2012: Yes
First Ladies’ Answer: Yes

If the Nationals don’t sign him to an extension before the end of 2012, they are stupid.  And we think [and hope] they aren’t stupid.

Who won’t be on the Nationals 2012 Roster:
First Ladies’ Answers: Slaten / Gorzelanny / Maya / H-Rod / Wang / Cora / LaRoche / Marrero / Bixler / Brown / Gomes

It’s not that we don’t like these guys (well…some of these guys).  We just think that some make better trade bait, and some just don’t fit the direction that the team is headed.  This will be something to re-evaluate in the spring.

 
Favorite Professional Nats Writer:
First Ladies’ Answer: Mark Zuckerman

He’s really good at what he does – concise, appropriately humorous, with lots of interesting posts.  If you’re not reading his column, you should be.

Favorite Nats Blogger:
First Ladies’ Answer: Andrew Kinback, Nationals Inquisition

We love bloggers with a sense of humor, who alternately do and don’t take things too seriously.  He’s also active on twitter (@natsnq), which makes for good in-game commentary.

What do you think?  If you had a chance to vote too, where would you differ from our (or the group’s) picks?  Any other players on the Nats that you think could make a good candidate for team MVP?

2011 End of Year Prediction Round-Up

We’ve reached another October, and our beloved Nats have gone into hibernation, yet again.  At some point in the next few years reaching real fall weather won’t mean it’s time for Nats park to close up – hopefully it will mean sweater and oat-weather games with desperate hope to keep going.  This year, our boys are done, but with more accomplishments for the team record books and more hope for next spring.

Back in February, Ashley and I made some predictions about how this year would turn out.  We did a mid-season re-evaluation of those predictions, and now present our final scores. Here’s how the scoring works: 1 point for a correct pick (if not revised), a half point for a correct revised pick, minus 1 for every win off on win total, minus 1 for every place off in the division.

1)  Who will lead the Nats in home runs in 2011?

First Ladies Answer: Jayson Werth
Revised Prediction: Michael Morse
Final HR Leader: Michael Morse

Sticking with Mikey-Mo halfway through the season was the right choice.  Our buddy ended up with 31 homers for the year, while Jayson had 20, which was good enough for third.  (Points Total: 0.5/1)

2)  Who will lead the Nats in RBI?

First Ladies Answer: Adam LaRoche
Revised Prediction:Danny Espinosa
Final RBI Leader: Michael Morse

If only Danny hadn’t slumped in the late summer.  But it also helps that Michael had a lot of homers this year.  Sadly, we get no points.  (Points Total: 0.5/2)

3)  Who will lead the Nats in stolen bases?

First Ladies Answer: Nyjer Morgan
Revised Prediction: Roger Bernadina

Final Stolen Base Leader: Ian Desmond

Another wrong answer.  Bernadina had 17 total for the year, while Desmond closed things out with 25.  (Points Total: 0.5/3)

4)  Who will lead the staff in wins?

First Ladies Answer: Jordan Zimmermann
Winningest Pitcher: John Lannan

If J-Z had run support, or had the opportunity to pitch more games, he would definitely have been more of a contender for this, but we don’t begrudge Lannan his winningest season ever..  (Points Total: 0.5/4)

5)  Who will lead the staff in saves?

First Ladies Answer: Drew Storen
Savingest Pitcher: Drew Storen

43 saves for Drew!  Hot Damn! (Points Total: 1.5/5)

6)  Which starter will lead the team in starts?

First Ladies Answer: John Lannan
Pitcher with Most Starts: John Lannan

It’s easy to get the most starts when you’re allowed to pitch through an entire season.  (Points Total: 2.5/6)

7)  Who will pitch more innings for the Nats this season: Chien-Ming Wang, Yunesky Maya, Ross Detwiler?

First Ladies Answer: Chien-Ming Wang
Revised Prediction: Ross Detweiler
Most Starts: Ross Detweiler

Detweiler got the most innings pitched, but not by a lot.  He had 66 over Wang’s 62  (Points Total: 3/7)

8)  Who will get more at bats for the Nats this season:  Rick Ankiel, Jerry Hairston, Alberto Gonzalez?

First Ladies Answer: Rick Ankiel
Most At Bats: Rick Ankiel

With Gonzo traded before opening day, and Hairston traded mid-season, Ankiel is the last man standing.  (Points Total: 4/8)

9)  Who will get more at bats for the Nats this season:  Ivan Rodriguez, Jesus Flores, Wilson Ramos?

First Ladies Answer: Jesus Flores
Revised Prediction: Wilson Ramos
Most At Bats: Wilson Ramos

With the Nats keeping Pudge and Ramos in the bigs to start, and Flores only coming up to the Show mid-season, Ramos got all the attention.  (Points Total: 4.5/9)

10)  How many all-stars will the Nats have?  Who?

First Ladies Answer: 2; Ryan Zimmerman and Tyler Clippard.
Real Answer: 1; Tyler Clippard.

This is actually two questions.  We didn’t get the number of All-Star players right, but we did get one of the players (Goggles the Vulture!), so we give ourselves 1 point out of two available.  (Points Total: 5.5/11)

11)  Total wins and what place in the division?

First Ladies Answer: 78 Wins; 3rd Place
Total Wins; Place in Division: 80 wins, 3rd place

Another stealthy two-part question!  But since this one is more about how “off” we were with our predictions, we stick with our 5.5 point base from the last question, and realize that since we got the third place part right, we get 1 point, but two points off for two wins off (though I think we should get points for predicting the close to 10-point leap). (Points Total: 4.5/11)

Final Point Total: 4.5 – Less than 50%, but considering we made these guesses 7 months ago, we did pretty good.

Last Dance – September 25, 2011: Washington Nationals vs Atlanta Braves

Here we are, six months later.  We started the season on March 31 with rain, cold, and a loss to the Braves.  Things have changed dramatically since then.  The weather was improved (cloudy, but warm, with eventual sunshine), and a team with more wins and some confidence was taking on the Braves again to close out the season.

The atmosphere down in 129 was like the last day of school.  Fans and ushers were hugging, and taking pictures.  Lucky season ticket holders chatted on the field as they prepared to be the starting nine – those who run out on the field and welcome the Nats starting fielders at the top of the first inning.  And then festivities really started.  Glenn Donnellan got the call to do the final National Anthem of the year on his electric batolin.

Ross Detweiler pitched six innings in a start where he hoped to prove he deserves a spot on the rotation next year.  He got himself into a couple jams with the bases loaded, but managed to work his way out of it with the help of an excellent defense behind him.

I stepped away from our seats after the President’s Race to get a snack when I heard the roar of the crowd.  I quickly turned my attentions to the monitor near the concession stand to see a replay of Wilson Ramos hitting his home run.

At that point, the Nationals had all the runs they would need to win the game.  At the top of the seventh, Davey Johnson brought in Henry Rodriguez, who went on to throw seven triple-digit-fastballs in a row.  It was such an unbelievably dominant performance that the Braves fans behind us asked if the radar gun in the stadium was stuck, because no one could throw like that.

And just when everyone in the stadium was thinking it couldn’t get any better, Michael Morse went on to smack a two-run homer (his 29th of the year) to lift the team up to 3-0.  It was such an electric moment that the fans kept cheering for Morse until he came out and gave a curtain call to the fans.

Cap that off with lights out innings from Clippard and Storen, and it was a magical afternoon.

That’s the last of our game posts for the year.  We’ll be back after the season to do some wrap-up posts.  So be on the lookout.  And if you’re free the afternoon of Wednesday September 28 (final Nats game of the year), there’s a group meeting up at the Clyde’s near Friendship Heights.  We’ll be the group in the downstairs bar, and it’s as good a place as any to close out the season.  Game starts at 4pm.

P.S. recognize this nerd with the sign? F.P. Santangelo commented on the sign saying, “I’ll second that.”

Full album can be found here.