No shock no Jays were named on the rookie ballot. Three guys available for cash only in the winter were #2/3/4 - Yoenis Cespedes and Yu Darvish along with Orioles starter (who was a free agent thus no posting fee) Wei-Yin Chen. Jarrod Parker, who the A's got in a winter trade, was 5th with 1 third place vote. Thus only the winner, Mike Trout, was with his current organization during the 2011 season.

8 guys got votes in the NL - given only 3 slots are on the ballot that is quite a bit. Harper had a 119 OPS+ 5.0 rWAR 4.9 fWAR vs Miley's 125 ERA+ in 194 IP 3.2 rWAR 4.8 fWAR. Interesting that Baseball Reference has it as a blowout while Fangraphs has it as a tossup.

Manager of the Year normally goes to the most surprising (good) team. Thus Oakland's Bob Melvin (team winning division over heavily favored Texas in his first full season as manager) or the Orioles Buck Showalter (in the playoffs in his 2nd full season over favorites Tampa & Boston). Robin Ventura with the White Sox is expected to get votes as his team competed well in the weak AL Central. NL I expect Davey Johnson to win for Washington as all he does is win - only once has his team finished lower than 2nd in a full season, his first year in LA with a 3rd place finish. Can someone remind me why Gord Ash didn't hire him when given a chance? Dusty Baker of the Reds deserves a shot too as his team went playoffs - 3rd place sub 500 - playoffs in the past 3 years.

Can someone remind me why Gord Ash didn't hire him when given a chance

But managers make very little difference!

A lot of teams let him sit at home doing nothing for quite a few years.

I still believe in Cito. He had some bad years but he also had good years with both good & bad teams.

I've been a big fan of Davy Johnson for over 20 years. Every hire we've made since Cito was fired in which Davy wasn't working, he was my first choice.

No shock people have forgotten this thread, but the awards have an interesting sub-plot this year - they list who voted for who.

MVP...
Bob Elliot (Sun): Cabrera, Trout, Beltre, Cano, Jones, Jeter, Hamilton, Rodney, Reddick, Encarnacion
Mark Zwolinski (Star): Cabrera, Trout, Cano, Beltre, Hamilton, Price, Jones, Jeter, Rios, Cespedes
To compare...
Results: Cabrera, Trout, Beltre, Cano, Hamilton, Jones, Jeter, Verlander, Fielder, Cespedes, Encarnacion, ...
rWAR: Trout, Cano, Cabrera, Beltre, Gordon, Zobrist, Hunter, Jackson, Span, Pedroia

Cy Young...
Shi Davidi (at large): Price, Verlander, Rodney, Weaver, Hernandez
Ken Fidlin (Sun): Verlander, Price, Weaver, Hernandez, Rodney
Results: Price, Verlander, Weaver, Hernandez, Rodney
rWAR: Verlander, Price, Harrison, Sale, Kuroda

Rookie...
Richard Griffin (Star): Trout, Cespedes, Darvish
Robert MacLeod (Globe): Trout, Cespedes, Darvish
Results: Trout, Cespedes, Darvish

Manager...
Jeff Blair (Globe): Showalter, Melvin, Girardi
Mike Rutsey (Sun): Showalter, Melvin, Maddon
Results: Melvin, Showalter, Ventura

The Sun had 3 voters, Star and Globe 2 each, plus Davidi 'at large' (Sportsnet). Reasonable spread through the outlets and you see a lot of traditionalists in MVP, group think in rookie, and AL East bias in Manager. Both for Cy had the same 5 guys, just in a different order.

On your AL list of rWAR, the 2011 MVP Justin Verlander should slot in third, another player producing more value than Miguel Cabrera. Yes, I'm bitter.

Eh, after the mess the voters used to make in the 80's and 90's I can live with a triple crown getting MVP even if it wasn't as valuable as a few other players.

The worst was 1996 with Juan Gonzalez getting it over A-Rod when A-Rod was at SS with strong defense and higher than DH Gonzalez in Avg, OBP and almost higher in Slg (12 points shy) with more SB (15 vs 2), and far more runs scored (141 vs 89). But the RBI/HR won the day with Gonzo's 47-36 advantage and 144 to 123 advantage. By rWAR it was 9.2 A-Rod to 3.5 Gonzalez. 16 guys who got votes for MVP had a higher WAR figure than Gonzalez that year with a 17th tied with him. In 1998 Gonzalez got a second MVP with a 4.6 WAR total vs A-Rod's 8.3 (9th place), Clemens 7.8 (11th), and Jeter's 7.3 (3rd). 'Only' 14 guys getting MVP votes beat him for rWAR.

Being a baseball fan in the 90's was painful if you cared at all about MVP voting. 1998 was similar in the NL with Sosa being 9th in rWAR but getting it thanks to his 66 HR and coming in 2nd to McGwire in the big HR chase. Very bizarre that there was a clear comparison case who did better but they still picked Sosa. Whats odd is rWAR has 3 guys ahead of McGwire's 70 HR season - Kevin Brown (2.38 ERA at height of steroid era), Barry Bonds (yes, he outplayed McGwire that year and had a higher OPS than Sosa and this is pre-HGH and other stuff based on the book about Bonds), and John Olerud (yes, he had more than 1 great year).

I'm just glad writers are getting smarter and while Trout did deserve it this year I suspect if Cabrera didn't get that triple crown he'd have lost to Trout.

Am happy to see Cabrera win even though Trout was a better player. I thought the anti-Cabrera crowd had gotten insane with their level of criticism. Cabrera was a deserving candidate who had a fantastic year and to see someone like Keith Law pretend that Cabrera wasn't a top-3 candidate is ridiculous and it's nice to see him go crazy over it.

I also hate WAR as a statistic and would really wish people would stop pushing it as the best measure of a player's value. It isn't. Trout was better that Cabrera but that is obvious based on using more traditional statistics (OBP, SLG, SB, an defensive contribution).

Until somebody comes up with a better measure, WAR is the best measure of a player's value.

Congratulations to the 6 voters who got it right. Anti-congratulations to the voter who picked Raul Ibanez 10th.

"Until somebody comes up with a better measure, WAR is the best measure of a player's value."

No, it isn't. The best measure of a players' value is looking at a combination of stats and factors (such as ball park, division, league, general opinion about defense, etc...). I have never seen the need to try to reduce everything to one statistic. It doesn't work and there's no need for it.

But WAR does all of that. Except division/league (oh hey, another point in favour of Trout.)

I'm still fairly certain that Trout would have won the MVP award if Detroit missed the playoffs. So because Chicago had a late-September swoon, Cabrera became more valuable than Trout.

"I have never seen the need to try to reduce everything to one statistic."
No, reducing everything to THREE statistics - BA, HR, RBI - is clearly reasonable, though.