The Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance

Stumping for:

CL Larry Taylor for Shutdown Reliever - ridiculous 0.65 WHIP and could have made a serious run at the PEBA saves record if his teammates hadn't given up the last week or two of the season. Opponents only hit .131 against him

C Samuel Kettley for All-Leather Award - most of his defensive stats (for what they are worth) are middle-of-the-pack. However, he absolutely SHUT DOWN opponents on the base paths. Through 111 games only 26 base runners attempted to steal a base - and he caught almost half of them (46.9% caught stealing). He only allowed 14 stolen bases all season.

SP Valentim Ornelas for Golden Arm - 20 game winner leading the league in IP and WHIP. Also, if he wins I won't have to pay Motoyuki Hatsutori his Golden Arm bonus...

Speaking of, Motoyuki Hatsutori should totally be eligible for the Wunderkind award

I have an announcement to make. . .

I am over WAR as the main factor that I use to determine award winners.

Why?

Well, let's just say that me and dWAR are never ever ever ever getting back together.

Hmmmmmm... I smell another FIP in the equation...

Tip: don't vote for anybody from Duluth

Going to stump for a couple Fargo players for Wunderkind consideration (was happy to have three players in total on list!), though there is tough competition in the SL if you only look at WAR figures. My argument against using purely WAR here is that playing a full season will boost your WAR simply because the player totaled more plate appearances/games where as looking at wOBA gives a look purely at who was the best hitter (hint Pat Watson CF). Though I do acknowledge WAR captures the defensive value put forth so there is probably some balance there.

1B Carlos Ortega played 138 games and had a wRC+ of 142 and a .213 ISO, as a rookie. Just saying.

CF Pat Watson played in only 39 games from the late mid-season on but still accumulated 3 WAR (think about that, if he played this way for 120 games, he'd have 9 WAR), 159 wRC+, 17 stolen bases, .315 ISO, 8.6 zone rating in centerfield (also a stat that depends on playing time). You can argue that these numbers aren't sustainable, but even so that was one impressive debut for a quarter season of games.