BBA Awards: The Willie Mays Award

This is my second award voting in the BBA Awards. To learn more about BBA Awards read my earlier post. The Willie Mays Award is one I’ve been looking forward to all year. The award acknowledges the best rookie (AL in my case). Like the Connie Mack Award, you all know who my winner is for this award. I’ve debated with many people this season about why Jeremy Hellickson is the no-brainer to win the AL ROY Award. Here’s my top three:

1.) Jeremy Hellickson- Jeremy has unarguably put up the best numbers out of all American League pitchers. Check out the stats. Read this article for a full explanation.

2.) Eric Hosmer- The Royals’ Hosmer is amongst the three best offensive AL rookies, with Jemile Weeks and Mark Trumbo. What made me pick Hosmer over these two guys was his balance of skills. Hosmer showed everyone that he could hit for power (like Trumbo) and hit for average (like Weeks), but still manage to hit about .40 points higher than Trumbo and much more RBI’s than Weeks. Although Trumbo’s power numbers are a bit better, Hosmer has him beat average wise and even defensively. Both Jemile Weeks and Trumbo do not field as well him, and that’s a very important stat to look at when it comes to ROY.

3.) Ivan Nova- Probably the Yankees’ second best starter, after his terrific second half of the season. His best statistic by far is wins, which he has 16 of and an impressive perfect record post-All Star break. It was a hard choice wether to put him in the top 3 or not, but I decided to because of how much he means to his ball club.          

If you are a member of the BBA and have posted your Willie Mays Award (or any other award) votes, I’d really like to see what you think. Comment the link of your post below. I would also love to see anyone else’s opinions. You also can rate the post from 1-5 stars, evaluating my voting. If you’re a blogger interested and joining the BBA, click here.