Staff Blog
No winners, but Phillies fare well in Internet Baseball Awards
The winners of the Internet Baseball Awards — essentially the MVP, Cy Young, Rookie and Manger of the Year awards as chosen by stathead fans — were announced of the last two days.
More than 1,200 ballots were cast in this year's installment. The hometown nine fared well in the National League though, much like this year's post-season, nobody took home any hardware:
MVP:
Chase Utley and Ryan Howard finished 4th and 10th respectively in the MVP voting.
Jayson Werth (20), Raul Ibanez (24) and Cliff Lee (28) also made showings
Cy Young:
Cliff Lee finished 9th in the balloting, which is not bad considering he put in less than a half season of work in the red pinstripes. J.A. Happ placed 16th with Cole Hamels clocking in at 19th.
Rookie of the Year:
This was a nailbiter, as J.A. Happ finished 2nd to the Braves' Tommy Hanson in a photo finish. Happ racked up 5,473 points to Hanson's 5,487. To my knowledge, no other Phils rookies received votes.
Manager of the Year:
Charlie Manuel finished 4th, behind Jim Tracy (whose miraculous reversal of the Rockies season was deserving of praise even if his handling of the NLDS was not), Joe Torre (who's kind of coasting on reputation at this point) and Tony LaRussa (see Joe Torre).
