SB Nation NL Rookie of the Year: Tommy Hanson

by Charlie on Nov 10, 2009 3:17 AM EST Comment 3 comments

More photos » by John Bazemore - AP

Atlanta Braves starter Tommy Hanson works in the first inning of a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Friday, July 31, 2009, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

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Here are the results (after the jump because the charts don't quite work on the front page):

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Tommy Hanson	Atlanta Braves	9	9	6	78
2	J.A. Happ	Philadelphia Phillies	6	9	7	64
3	Andrew McCutchen	Pittsburgh Pirates	8	3	5	54
4	Chris Coghlan	Florida Marlins	7	5	4	54
5	Dexter Fowler	Colorado Rockies	-	3	1	10
6	Randy Wells	Chicago Cubs	-	-	6	6
7	Garrett Jones	Pittsburgh Pirates	1	-	-	5
8	Casey McGehee	Milwaukee Brewers	-	1	2	5
9	Seth Smith	Colorado Rockies	-	1	-	3

I voted Hanson, McCutchen, Happ. Long-term, I'm a bigger fan of McCutchen than any of them--actually, I'm not a big long-term believer in Hanson because I think he leaves the ball up too much--but his performance this year really was excellent in every way you'd hope for. Hanson also gets the edge over Happ because of better peripherals. Happ actually had a huge edge over Hanson in VORP (who had a very small edge over McCutchen) but I have to make a judgment call here and vote for the guy who was, in my view, really beating the opposition instead of the guy who pitched well but depended more on his defense.

Here are the AL results:

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Elvis Andrus	Texas Rangers	6	9	6	63
2	Andrew Bailey	Oakland Athletics	11	1	3	61
3	Jeff Niemann	Tampa Bay Rays	3	5	3	33
4	Rick Porcello	Detroit Tigers	2	7	2	33
5	Brett Anderson	Oakland Athletics	5	1	3	31
6	Gordon Beckham	Chicago White Sox	1	2	8	19
7	Nolan Reimold	Baltimore Orioles	1	-	1	6
8	Matt Wieters	Baltimore Orioles	-	1	3	6
9	Brad Bergesen	Baltimore Orioles	-	1	-	3
10	Ricky Romero	Toronto Blue Jays	-	1	-	3
11	Travis Snider	Toronto Blue Jays	-	1	-	3

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Comments

I would have voted McCutchen, Smith, Hanson in the NL. Happ is probably near the bottom of the Top 10. Zimmerman would have been towards the top if he would have had a 2nd half like the first instead of wrecking his arm.

It would be Anderson, Andrus, Romero in the AL. From here, Anderson and McCutchen separated themselves from the pack. But they won’t come close to winning the baseball writer’s awards not to mention the SB Nation. That’s the consequence for playing in Pittsburgh and Oakland instead of a large media market.

by Adam Reynolds on Nov 10, 2009 5:52 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

My ballot:

McCutchen – Smith – Wells, in that order. Hanson had a good season, but I don’t consider “ceiling” in ROY voting, and IMO Wells’s edge in PT was too much to overcome.

by Vlad on Nov 10, 2009 9:34 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Blast

I thought Cutch might be able to weasel the award, and he did get the first-place votes, but I kind of assumed he wouldn’t get enough of a following to win it because he really wasn’t mentioned much publicly for the award by the major media types.

by Slizeezyc on Nov 10, 2009 3:54 PM EST reply actions 0 recs