The First Annual Cardinal Blogger Awards

The votes have been cast. Now let's see who won!

First off, a comment from Kujo at Rockin' the Red for a new title for the group:

How about Cardinals Bloggers United, in the likeness of the soccer hooligan firms in England?

That's not bad. Those involved, what do you think? Or perhaps United Cardinal Bloggers would be more your style? If we are going to keep doing projects, we gotta find a name. And I do hope we keep doing projects.

OK, to the awards. I'll post some quotes from those bloggers that elaborated on their selections.

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1. Cardinal Pitcher of the Year

It wasn't much of a contest, as Adam Wainwright brought home 6 of the 8 ballots. As Rockin' the Red stated:

In a year that had a revolving door of a 5th rotation spot, Adam brought stability and a glimmer of hope that we weren't wasting our time watching this team after all.

That pretty much sums it up. Others receiving votes were Ryan Franklin and Jason Isringhausen.

2. Cardinal Player of the Year.

Albert Pujols. You expected something else? AP was a unanimous decision among the eight bloggers. cards4life at Redbird Ramblings stated:

The guy was awesome and put up great numbers even with the bad years that the guys around him in the lineup had....Pools was hands down the player of the year.

3. Game of the Year

As perhaps a representation of how uninspiring and unmemorable this season was, no one game was seen as the defining Game of the Year. In fact, there was a tie between the Ankiel debut (August 9) and the game against Milwaukee that featured Molina's two home runs and Wainwright's seven scoreless innings (August 16). Both of those games received two votes apiece. Back to Kujo:

The fact that he did in his first game back and in Busch Stadium makes it that much more incredible. It's such a rare occurrence to see that I don't know if there will be ever be a moment as unique as that was.

Other games were a seesaw affair against the Cubs with extra innings (April 22), a series-winning game against the Brewers (July 29), Ankiel's two-home-run game against the Dodgers (August 11), and a loss against the Diamondbacks (September 7).

4. Cardinal Rookie of the Year

There wasn't much competition here, so it's not surprising that Brendan Ryan was named on five ballots. Two people selected Ankiel under the "he's a rookie hitter" theory and one selected Ryan Ludwick, who was a rookie to the Cardinals (i.e., in his first year with the team) even though he was not technically a rookie by MLB standards.

5. Surprise of the Year

There were a number of surprises this year, but in our opinion, the biggest one was the departure of Walt Jocketty as Cardinals' GM. Walt was named on three ballots, edging out the third place finish, TLR's return, and two write-in selections, the decision to Braden Looper in the rotation and the death of Josh Hancock.

6. Blog of the Year

Not much of a surprise here. Viva El Birdos received six of the eight votes, dominating the category. And, being that he quoted me, I'll quote cf4l:

as C70 once said, this is LB’s blogosphere and we are just happy to be part of it

Pretty much sums it up. The other two votes went to Fungoes (also, an excellent blog that should have been on the ballot) and this blog (which I appreciate very much).

7. Surprise Player of the Year

A pretty even split among three players, so even that Ryan Franklin and Rick Ankiel tie for the award with three votes each, while Yadier Molina received two votes. Good things were pretty rare in St. Louis in 2007. Eric at FR stated:

Many wrote off his come back as a hitter as a prolonging of his tragedy. Out of the ashes the phoenix arose, though like I mentioned before, the HGH thing has beclouded a feel good story.

8. Disappointing Player of the Year

There were a number to choose from here. The Cardinal bloggers, though, select Adam Kennedy as the worst of the bunch. As Kujo put it:

It's not so much that he had a bad year - which he definitely did - but rather it was the fact that he was supposed to complete this offense and horribly failed to do so. Kennedy was, in fact, the least valuable player on the team.

Also on ballots were Anthony Reyes, Kip Wells and Chris Carpenter. As weak as the pitching was in 2007, it really means something that a hitter won this award.

9. New Cardinal of the Year

A lot of the new Cardinals didn't have much of a year (see Kip Wells, Mike Maroth and Adam Kennedy) but Joel Pineiro made an impression on the bloggers, who selected him for this award fairly convincingly. Here was Deaner at CardinalNationGlobe's reasoning:

This was the easiest on the ballot considering the other nominees were Adam Kennedy and Kip Wells. Pineiro compiled a 4.33 ERA, a 7-5 record, with 60 K and 26 BB. In his last 10 games Joel went 6-3 with 3.28 ERA.

Also getting a vote were a couple of the stellar relievers of the Cardinals, Ryan Franklin and Russ Springer.

10. Most Anticipated Cardinal

No contest. Every single ballot had the same name. Colby Rasmus. As cards4life said:

Its freshing to see a five tool future allstar player developed by the cards minor league system for a change. Its been a while hasn’t it?

No doubt. No doubt.

In case you want to see how each person voted, here's a handy-dandy chart:

Award	C70	CNG	CGM	FR	Readin'	Ramblings	Red Fun	Rockin'
Pitcher OTY	Wainwright	Wainwright	Wainwright	Isringhausen	Wainwright	Wainwright	Franklin	Wainwright
Player OTY	Pujols	Pujols	Pujols	Pujols	Pujols	Pujols	Pujols	Pujols
Game OTY	9/7	8/11	8/16	4/22	7/29	8/9	8/16	8/9
Rookie OTY	Ryan	Ryan	Ludwick	Ankiel	Ryan	Ankiel	Ryan	Ryan
Surprise OTY	Jocketty	Third place	Jocketty	LaRussa	Hancock	Jocketty	Third place	Looper
Blog OTY	VEB	VEB	C70	Fungoes	VEB	VEB	VEB	VEB
Surprise Player OTY	Molina	Ankiel	Molina	Ankiel	Franklin	Franklin	Franklin	Ankiel
Disappointing Player OTY	Reyes	Reyes	Kennedy	Kennedy	Kennedy	Wells	Carpenter	Kennedy
New Cardinal OTY	Pineiro	Pineiro	Pineiro	Springer	Pineiro	Franklin	Pineiro	Pineiro
Most Anticipated	Rasmus	Rasmus	Rasmus	Rasmus	Rasmus	Rasmus	Rasmus	Rasmus

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