DIBS announces winners
posted in 2006-07 offseason, awards |The Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes announced the winners of their second annual player awards. DIBS is a rapidly-expanding group of internet writers who follow the Tigers, and I was a voter this year.
Shortstop Carlos Guillen was named the DIBS Player of the Year as voted on by DIBS members. Pitcher Kenny Rogers earned pitcher of the year honors with fellow starter Justin Verlander being recognized for his breakout season. In addition to the three regular season award winners, DIBS named Rogers its Postseason Performer.
I’m pretty sure my postseason awards, as announced in October, follow my voting, but I will briefly go over how I voted.
Player of the Year
1. Carlos Guillen
2. Placido Polanco
3. Curtis Granderson
Pitcher of the Year
1. Kenny Rogers
2. Justin Verlander
3. Joel Zumaya
Breakout of the Year
1. Curtis Granderson
2. Joel Zumaya
3. Justin Verlander
Postseason Player
1. Craig Monroe
2. Carlos Guillen
3. Kenny Rogers
Rogers, that one is pretty much evident. He was the mature and steady arm who helped guide the entire staff. Guillen, that one is, too. He’s just an incredible batter whose contributions go unheralded nationally.
Curtis Granderson, I felt, was an extremely important every-day Tiger whose presence was much-needed in center field, and the team seemed to have its winning streaks when he was getting on base. A big reason the Tigers pitchers did well was defense, and he played great in the middle of the big field. Zumaya was an unexpected breakout and pitched among the highest leverage situations of any reliever in baseball. Verlander snuck up on nobody.
As for Monroe, five post-season home runs put him among the leaders in a single postseason in baseball. Of course, he had a few more games to do it than those 50 years ago, but it was still nice to have him in that company and his OPS was .911. I could have gone with Rogers for his postseason performance, but it was a bit murky with the smudge that showed up.
Hopefully there’s even most voters in next season’s DIBS awards.
Sweaty Man Ian and Big Al have weighed in with how they voted.
Sphere It
I completely agree with your rankings above, although I probably would have flip flopped Granderson and Zumaya. Altough Granderson (”What do you call a great Anderson?….A Granderson” — Rod Allen) came to be my favorite new player this year, I thought of Zumaya as having a bigger breakout year. He seemed to be more consistent throughout the year and it was unbelievable to me the way he pitched the team out of trouble all season. Either one is a good pick though.