Buster Posey, Neftali Feliz Win Rookie of the Year Awards

My Preseason National League ROY Pick: Stephen Strasburg

2010 National League ROY: Buster Posey

On Tuesday, San Francisco Giants’ catcher Buster Posey capped off a banner year. First he wins a World Series title with the Giants and then he wins the Rookie of the Year award.

Posey won the NL ROY on Monday

Posey captured 20 out of 32 first-place votes and became the sixth catcher to win the award. Atlanta Braves’ OF Jason Heyward finished second in the voting and St. Louis Cardinals’ LHP Jaime Garcia finished third.

Posey, who was called up on May 29, had an amazing year for the “SF Gigantics” as Chris Russo would call them. He hit .305/.357/.505 with 18 HR’s and a 3.9 WAR in 443 PA’s.

Posey shined offensively and even defensively behind the plate. Watching Posey catch on a consistent basis and of course, in the postseason, you can tell he has the tools to become a solid defensive catcher.

Award voting season wouldn’t be complete without some controversy. The big controversy over the NL ROY award was that Pittsburgh Post Gazette and Pittsburgh Pirate beat writer Dejan Kovacevic didn’t include Heyward on his ballot, but included Neil Walker and Jose Tabata of the Pirates.

I still haven’t figured out why Major League Baseball leaves their award voting up to a bunch of local beat writers. It just never made sense to me.

Yes, we are in an era of accessibility. I can watch a game between the Giants and Padres when I am in New York in about 10 different ways.

But beat writers cover their team and their team only. The only time they can see a player from an opposing team is when their team plays that team. Things would seem more logical to me if MLB just let players and managers vote on these awards.

My preseason American League ROY pick: Brian Matusz

2010 American League ROY: Neftali Feliz

Posey and Neftali Feliz shared a World Series together and now they are going to share Rookie of the Year awards together. Posey won it in the NL and Feliz won it in the AL.

Feliz received 20 first-place votes to win the award. Detroit Tigers’ OF Austin Jackson finished third and Minnesota Twins’ 3B Danny Valencia finished third.

Like Posey, the Texas Rangers weren’t entirely sure what do with the 22-year-old Feliz at the start of the season. There was a debate as to whether or not Feliz should start or remain in the bullpen.

The Rangers decided to leave in the bullpen, but to be a setup man to closer Frank Francisco. That lasted about a week. Francisco blew a couple of saves early, Ron Washington promoted Feliz to the closer role, and the rest is history.

Feliz finished the 2010 season with a 2.73 ERA, a 0.88 WHIP, and 9.2 K’s/9. Feliz relied on a 96 mph fastball that he threw a whopping 82.5 percent of the time.

I do think if he wants to remain a success in the closer’s role, he is going to have to develop another killer pitch. He doesn’t want to get into a Jonathan Papelbon situation where he has no secondary pitch and hitters just sit back and sit on his fastball.

Feliz became the second Ranger ever to win the AL ROY award. Mike Hargrove won the award in 1974.

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