2010 Cardinal Blogger Awards Ballot

Each year the United Cardinal Bloggers put out postseason awards. Since there were four of us voting, of course we had to make it into a little roundtable back and forth between the four of us, if for no other reason than because it gave us an excuse to chatter about the boys together for a couple days over email!

So without further ado, here is our ballot for this year...

Cardinal Bloggers Awards

2010 Ballot

1. Player of the Year
–Matt Holliday - Erika surprised no one with this vote, saying, "Holliday, because I love to watch him.  More reasons? Because he rallied back after a dry spell and played like every out mattered to the bitter end.  Everyone is going to say Albert because he is Albert.  But I think Matt gets a nod here too."
–Albert Pujols - Erika was outvoted. Jacqueline said it best, "Best player in the game from Opening Day to Oct. We are blessed to watch him play. Doesn’t take him half a season to 'warm up'."
–Colby Rasmus
–Write-in: _______________

2. Pitcher of the Year
–Chris Carpenter
–Jaime Garcia
–Adam Wainwright - Did you even have to ask? Now that he has officially taken home 2nd place in the Cy Young voting, it's a no brainer who the best pitcher was for the Cards this year... and no, I'm not saying that just because he's my favorite. This one was unanimous! The announcement yesterday also tripped a clause in his contract that will most likely (provided he does not end 2011 on the DL - please no!!) keep Adam in the birds on the bat through 2013. Consider this our CDD happy dance of the day!
–Write-in: _______________

3. Game of the Year
–April 5 at Cincinnati–Opening Day, 2 HR from Pujols, slam from Molina
–May 30 at Chicago–Pujols three home runs
–July 18 vs. Los Angeles–Five runs in eight and ninth to win
–July 19 vs. Philadelphia–Four home runs
–August 10 at Cincinnati–Brawl, home run from Molina - Well now you know what gets our blood boiling! Erika chimed in with, "Finally we played with real passion and it finally looked like it would propel us into first and keep us there…..Not exactly." I think all of us in Cardinal Nation had our blood boiling during that series, and to fall flat and not ride that adrenaline high or whatever you want to call it right through to October was a definite letdown after the smackdown the Cards laid on Cincy that weekend.
–Write-in: _________________

4. Surprise Player of the Year - One of the bummers with having 4 votes is that we completely split. While I tried to be the deciding vote in most of these, I couldn't make it happen here. So here's our tie!
–David Freese - Erika and Jacqueline sat firmly in this camp, with Jacqueline saying, "Complete player. Hot bat, good glove, bad ankles."
–Jaime Garcia - Cadence echoed my thoughts with this one, "Although I knew he would be good, I wasn’t expecting Jaime to come out like this.  Awesome to watch." I absolutely felt the same way. Every time I saw Jaime pitch this year was awesome! I'm looking forward to see him and Waino taking turns shutting down the opposition for many years to come.
–Jon Jay
–Write-in: ________________

5. Disappointing Player of the Year
–Kyle Lohse - Jacqueline
–Dennys Reyes
–Brendan Ryan
–Write-in: Brad Penny - Cadence says, "I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect from Penny, but not seeing him again after the Grand Slam was a surprise to me.  Did anyone know the injury would be that bad?  Even Kyle Lohse had surgery and came back (while not necessarily good, he came back).  Even better, we hear in the offseason that Penny spent his “hard earned” Cardinal cash on an engagement ring."  Disappointing. Ang agrees, and that became the deciding vote.
Erika did not vote in this one, hysterically (predictably?) saying, "I can’t even answer this one!  Calling any of them disappointing would be too mean!  Haha  Help!!" Don't worry - we got your back on this one!

6. Rookie of the Year
–Jaime Garcia - Another unanimous vote for us. I was pulling for Jaime in spring training to snag that fifth spot in the rotation. I wasn't exactly expecting him to hold down the third spot for most of the year! It would have been unfair to have such lofty expectations for the 24 year old who was rolling out of Tommy John surgery rehab, so we've chalked him up as a "pleasant surprise"... one that we hope to see again in 2011!
–Jon Jay
–Fernando Salas
–Write-in: _________________

7. Acquisition of the Year
–Aaron Miles
–Brad Penny
–Jake Westbrook - Jacqueline took the words right out of my mouth when she responded with, "Is this question for real? Brad Penny won four games and spent the rest of the season Dancin with a Star. Miles really didn’t do too badly, just wasn’t a huge game changer. Westbrook could be a good acquisition if he stays a Card." Guess what? We win!
–Write-in: ________________

8. Biggest Off-Field Story
–Jaime Garcia’s shutdown without him knowing - I'm pretty sure that I knew Garcia had been shut down before he did. That's pretty impressive. Erika's got a point here, "Hard to pick between this and the Colby story.  But the Garcia shutdown was fascinating because it involved how social media and twitter can directly affect  the communication (or lack of) within a professional sports team.  The fans knew before Jaime?  That still amazes me.  Do the players like or loathe twitter?  A curious question."
–Mark McGwire’s return to baseball
–Colby Rasmus’s trade request
–Write-in: _____________

9. Most Anticipated Cardinal - Shoot, another split vote. Daniel's going to be maaaaaad...
–Zack Cox - Cadence and Jacqueline went for this year's number one draft pick, saying, "Supposed to have a major league ready bat. 3rd baseman who might be moved to 2nd. Bring it on!"
–Lance Lynn
–Shelby Miller - Last year's number 1 draft pick spent the year at high A Quad Cities, and Erika and I are waiting to see if he lives up to the hype, but I know we both realllllly want him to.
–Write-in: ________________

10. Best Individual Cardinal Blog
–Write-in: C70 - The first blog that comes to mind, and Jacqueline was just kidding when she added, "Very informative-great writing. I could be sucking up."

11. Best Team Cardinal Blog
–Write-in: PH8 - Each one of the guys over at Pitcher's Hit Eighth gives a different point of view. Sounds kind of like us!

12. Best Media Blog
–Bird Land - Derrick Goold is probably our collective favorite scribe for the Cardinals, and his depth of research makes every piece worth the read.
–Cardinal Beat
–Obviously, You’re Not A Golfer
–Write-in: _______________

13. Best UCB Project
–Cardinal All-Decade Team
–Progressive Game Blog
–Roundtables - Far and away the winner here. Cadence said it best, "While I couldn’t participate every time, I really enjoyed the banter.  Cool way to get a lot of bloggers in one place."
–Write-in: ______________

14. Most Optimistic Cardinal Blog
–Write-in: C70 - We were basically unanimous here, although Jacqueline chipped in with, "We’re Card fans. Even when we’re discouraged or angry, we know it’ll get better. We ain’t the Mets or God help us…the Cubbies." In that case, we all win this award!

15. Funniest Cardinal Blog
–Write-in: Joe Sports Fan - Is there something amusing going on in the sporting world? Do you need amusing photoshop pictures to brighten a strange situation (the Colby/Tony spat comes to mind)? Are you entertained by people obsessed with mustaches? Matt and Josh have you covered. Trust us - you'll laugh daily!

16. Rookie Cardinal Blog of the Year
–Cardinal Diamond Diaries
–i70baseball - We've obviously got a lot of respect for all the hard work that goes into i70 on a daily basis, from the writers to the editors to the *cough* photo gal *cough*. Those of you that read us but not i70... umm... where have you been???
–RetroSimba
–Welcome To Baseball Heaven

–Write-in: _______________