NYaT Gives Out Our MLB Awards: National League

We did our American League picks earlier today. Now let's look at those award winners (or losers) from the Senior Circuit:

Joey Votto has been huge for the Reds in '10 (CBS Sportsline)

National League MVP: Joey Votto.
Followed by:  tied for second Albert Pujols and Carlos Gonzalez (Adrian Gonzalez, Ryan Howard and Troy Tulowitzki).

It's amazing to think back to the fact that the only way Votto made the All-Star Team this year was because of a fan vote for the last spot. Who were his biggest competition? Carlos Gonzalez and Ryan Zimmerman, two people he'll be battling for to win the MVP this season. Amazing. Albert Pujols is just having another one of his years but with both the Cards and Rockies not making the playoffs, I think that Pujols and CarGo are out. Same going for Adrian Gonzalez who had a fantastic year for a surprise Padre team, but went flat the last week of the season as his team did the same. But Votto (.424 OBP and .600 SLG lead the league, .324 average was second) has been fantastic for the surprise Reds, overtaking Pujols' Cards and winning the division for the first time in a long time. Amazingly, according to FanGraphs, Votto hit ZERO infield fly balls all season. None. Unless Luis Castillo is on the other team, infield fly balls are the one guarantee out (outfield fly balls can find grass or go beyond the wall and ground balls can find a hole but infield pops find gloves almost all the time). The one thing working against Votto and CarGo, though? Home parks that favor hitters. That didn't stop every single one of our voters, from putting Joey Votto first on their ballots making him a unanimous pick for NL MVP.

National League LVP: Jason Bay.
Followed by:  Melky Cabrera and a tie for third between Jeff Francouer, Nyjer Morgan, Oliver Perez and Pedro Feliz (Jose Reyes, Luis Castillo, Manny Ramirez, Matt Kemp, Nate McLouth, and Pablo Sandoval also receiving votes).

Again, it's the contract. Expectations were that Jason Bay would step right in to the Mets and produce. Maybe he wouldn't be good in a few years, but with a 4-year, $66 million contract (with a 5th year option/$3M buyout), they expected at least 3+ seasons of Bay producing. Well, hopefully for the Mets he'll produce the last 3 years of the contract, because 401 plate appearances and a .259/.347/.402 line with 6 HR and 47 RBIs was not what the Mets expected from their big free-agent signing. Bay's FanGraphs WAR is 1.4 and his Baseball-Reference total is 1.1 so he's not below average like Melky Cabrera (-1.3 and -0.4, respectively), but The Melk Man isn't making as much and his team is at least heading to the playoffs. Although it wasn't all his fault, Bay didn't do anything to help the mess out in Flushing this summer (though, to be fair, he last played July 25th because of post-concussion syndrome).

National League Cy Young: Roy Halladay.
Followed by:  a tie for second between Adam Wainwright and Ubaldo Jiminez and a tie for fourth between Josh Johnson and Mat Latos 

Two major awards in the NL and two unanimous decisions. Roy Halladay came to Philadelphia in the off-season and was everything the Phillies were hoping for--and more. All Halladay did was lead the league in wins (21), complete games (9), shutouts (4), innings pitched (250.2), BB/9 (1.1). and SO:BB (7.30). He also finished in the top 3 in WAR (whichever way you look at it), winning percentage (.677), WHIP (1.041), strikeouts (219), and ERA+ (165). Condolences to great seasons by Wainwright (who was even better than last year), Jiminez (who was the first half Cy), Johnson (who continues to be looked over), Latos (who was phenomenal for the Padres), Tim Hudson (big season for the Atlanta ace who got beaten for the Cy by Halladay in 2003), Roy Oswalt (on both Houston and Philly), Cole Hamels (big bounceback season), Brett Myers (who was the one good pickup in Houston), Clayton Kershaw (one of the best young pitchers in the league), Tim Lincecum (who, despite a bit of a down year, continues to strike out more than anyone else) and others, this one is Halladay's--especially considering the bandbox of a home park he pitches in.

National League Cy Yuck: Oliver Perez.
Followed by:  Rodrigo Lopez and a tie for third between Dave Bush and Kenshin Kawakami (Aaron Harang, Barry Zito, Carlos Zambrano, Jeff Suppan, Kyle Lohse, and Zack Duke also receiving votes)

Ollie, Ollie, uh-oh. This is a New York-centric voting crowd but Perez got 5 out of 6 1st place votes (Ben P left him off the ballot completely). The Mets are "winning" the wrong type of awards here with the LVP and Cy Yuck going to Queens, but they deserve it. Perez still has one year left on a 3-year, $36 million contract he signed in 2009. In those two years, he's pitched 112.1 innings, gone 3-9 with a 6.81 ERA, given up 21 HR, walked more than he's struck out (and has walked 8 per 9 innings), has an adjusted ERA of 59 (on a 100-point scale), has a WHIP of just below 2 (1.985) and has fought with management, gained weight, and was buried in the bullpen when he was actually healthy enough to pitch this year. And he shrugged off going to Walter Reed to visit the troops which may be the last straw in Ollie's horrific tenure on the Mets. Rodrigo Lopez (lead worst 16 losses, 111 earned runs, and 37 home runs allowed), Dave Bush (negative B-R WAR and 0.1 FanGraphs WAR), and Kenshin Kawakami (1-10 on the season) have all been REALLY bad, but no one has made the paper for the wrong reasons more than Ollie Perez, who has become worse than Dontrelle Willis because at least Willis puts up the appearance that he's at least trying not to suck.

National League Rookie of the Year: Buster Posey.
Followed by:  Jason Heyward, Jaime Garcia and Ike Davis 

One of our closest races is probably going to be a close race in the real voting as well. You can't go wrong with Posey or Heyward. Heck, even Garcia is doable (sorry Elissa and Ari, I'm not a Mets fans like you guys, though I Like Ike, but he's not even close to the these guys). But that's nothing to be ashamed of since this was SOME rookie class. Especially when you consider what we left off of this ballot: Gaby Sanchez, Tyler Colvin, Ian Desmond, Chris Johnson, Jose Tabata, Jonny Venters, Jhoulys Chacin, John Axford, Daniel Hudson, Neil Walker, Mike Stanton, Mike Leake and Starlin Castro...just to name a few. Oh, and Stephen Strasburg. We may look back on this as the best rookie class. But until then, the debate rages: do you take the catcher who has been one of the best players in baseball (and changed his team's fortune) since he arrived at the end of May; do you take the rightfielder with the .393 OBP who has 5 tools; or, do you take the pitcher who won as many games as Felix Hernandez and had an ERA less than David Price, Ubaldo Jiminez, Cliff Lee or CC Sabathia? I'll take the Mike Piazza clone who had a better average and slugging percentage since he debuted than anyone in the National League not named Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday, Carlos Gonzalez, or Joey Votto. Maybe if the Giants had called him up sooner, they wouldn't have had to wait until the last game of the season to clinch the division.

National League Manager of the Year: Bud Black.
Followed by:  Bobby Cox and Dusty Baker (Bruce Bochy and Charlie Manuel also receiving votes)

Very few expected the Padres to finish anyplace but last so it was amazing to see them in first place for most of the year. Unfortunately, Cinderella lost its slipper by the end of the season and the Padres finished one game out. But the NYaT voters didn't care about that when voting for the Manager of the Year. He finished first one every ballot except for Jay who put him third. The two people in front of Black on Jay's ballot were Dusty Baker and Bobby Cox. Both are deserving of praise. Dusty Baker would have had two World Series rings by now had an Anaheim comeback in 2002 and a guy named Steve Bartman in 2003 not got in his way and he's back in the playoffs again with another team looking for that title. Bobby Cox took a team without Chipper Jones down the stretch and somehow patched together enough players to get the Wild Card berth in his last season in the Major Leagues. But despite the accomplishments of those two (and Bochy and Manuel can't be dismissed either), Black's job was the toughest this year and he's being rewarded with the Manager of the Year award.

So what do you think of our National League picks? Agree with us or think there was a snub? Anyone we left out? Let us know below in the comments.

And here's a look at all the picks:

		NL MVP	NL LVP	NL Cy Young	NL Cy Yuck	NL ROY	NL Manager
Ben W	1st	Joey Votto	Jason Bay	Roy Halladay	Oliver Perez	Buster Posey	Bud Black
	2nd	Carlos Gonzalez	Jose Reyes	Mat Latos	Carlos Zambrano	Jaime Garcia	Bobby Cox
	3rd	Troy Tulowitzki	Manny Ramirez	Ubaldo Jiminez	Aaron Harang	Jason Heyward	Bruce Bochy
Jay	1st	Joey Votto	Melky Cabrera	Roy Halladay	Oliver Perez	Jason Heyward	Dusty Baker
	2nd	Carlos Gonzalez	Nyjer Morgan	Adam Wainwright	Rodrigo Lopez	Buster Posey	Bobby Cox
	3rd	Albert Pujols	Matt Kemp	Ubaldo Jiminez	Dave Bush	Jaime Garcia	Bud Black
Andrew	1st	Joey Votto	Pedro Feliz	Roy Halladay	Oliver Perez	Buster Posey	Bud Black
	2nd	Albert Pujols	Melky Cabrera	Ubaldo Jiminez	Dave Bush	Jason Heyward	Bobby Cox
	3rd	Adrian Gonzalez	Nyjer Morgan	Josh Johnson	Jeff Suppan	Jaime Garcia	Bruce Bochy
Ben P	1st	Joey Votto	Jason Bay	Roy Halladay	Rodrigo Lopez	Jaime Garcia	Bud Black
	2nd	Albert Pujols	Nate McLouth	Adam Wainwright	Zach Duke	Buster Posey	Dusty Baker
	3rd	Carlos Gonzalez	Pablo Sandoval	Josh Johnson	Barry Zito	Jason Heyward	Bobby Cox
Ari	1st	Joey Votto	Oliver Perez	Roy Halladay	Oliver Perez	Jason Heyward	Bud Black
	2nd	Ryan Howard	Luis Castillo	Adam Wainwright	Kyle Lohse	Ike Davis	Bobby Cox
	3rd	Albert Pujols	Jason Bay	Ubaldo Jiminez	Kenshin Kawakami	Buster Posey	Charlie Manuel
Elissa	1st	Joey Votto	Jeff Francouer	Roy Halladay	Oliver Perez	Buster Posey	Bud Black
	2nd	Carlos Gonzalez	Jason Bay	Ubaldo Jiminez	Kenshin Kawakami	Jason Heyward	Charlie Manuel
	3rd	Albert Pujols	Manny Ramirez	Adam Wainwright	Jeff Suppan	Ike Davis	Bobby Cox