As many of our readers were submitting their ballots for the annual Internet Baseball Awards, 11 Baseball Prospectus authors went into the polling booths themselves, voicing their opinions on who should win the major baseball awards this year. Here are the results…
Fans of other teams face the off-season and have a thought process that runs (more or less) like this: “We have some good young players, they should be OK. We have this high-paid guy that sucks, boy, it’d be nice to get rid of him. We have some decent pitchers, that might work out if they stay healthy. There are a couple of obvious weak spots, I hope we get a good free agent or two. Yeah, we might be pretty good next year.” Whereas the mob of angry Yankees fans runs: “We’ve got some good young players, but they’re not good enough. They’re gone, we’ll send them to some god-awful team in exchange for their best players coming up on free agency. We have this high-paid guy that sucks. He’s gone. We have some good pitchers, if they get hurt we’ll find more. There are a couple of obvious weak spots, and we’ll go get the best free agents out there. That should do it.” Where’s the fun in that? It’s like solving a Rubik’s Cube but being encouraged to paint the sides one uniform color.
The Angels need to upgrade at CF and DH. The Cubs need players who get on base. The Tigers need an intervention for their pitching staff. These and other news and notes out of Anaheim, Chicago, and Detroit in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.