We here at the SportsBlogs Nation have undertaken our own awards voting, similar to what the BBWAA do for their year-end awards. First up is the Rookie of the Year results for both leagues. The AL vote was fairly straight forward with Justin Verlander winning handily - not hard to do when you're 17-9. The only scrum in the AL was for second place, which ended up being a tie between Jonathan Papelbon and Francisco Liriano. I would imagine that if Liriano had not been injured that he would have challenged Verlander for the award, if not won it outright.
In the National League the voting was very close, with six players receiving first place votes. I voted for (1) Josh Johnson, (2) Takashi Saito, and (3) Dan Uggla. I probably overlooked Hanley Ramirez and Ryan Zimmerman, but I really like what Johnson did this year and I think he has the most upside of any of these guys, though he did tire a bit before being shut down.
It was interesting to see the way the voting went, with Zimmerman getting more first place votes than Ramirez, but since Ramirez was listed on more ballots he picked up some extra points and came away with the win. I imagine the real NL ROY will be just as close a battle between Ramirez and Zimmerman - it will be interesting to see who wins.
I still think that if Chuck James had been in the Braves starting rotation from day one of the season, he would have been a strong contender for this award. Maybe we can get a win next year with Joey Devine, or Anthony Lerew, or maybe even Scott Thorman, since I believe he will still technically be a rookie next year. Or maybe, as a long shot, Yunel Escobar...that would be intriguing.