As I noted Sunday, I joined the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America last year and so am voting in their awards election for the first time.
Monday, the IBWAA announced its choices for Rookie of the Year for 2014, and there isn't much surprise here:
AL Rookie
1st Place: Jose Abreu, Chicago White Sox
2nd Place: Masahiro Tanaka, New York Yankees
3rd Place: Dellin Betances, New York Yankees
NL Rookie
1st Place: Jacob deGrom, New York Mets
2nd Place: Billy Hamilton, Cincinnati Reds
3rd Place: Ender Inciarte, Arizona Diamondbacks
Abreu received 154 of 158 first-place votes and a total of 782 points. Tanaka received one first-place vote, with a total of 135 points, and Betances garnered 103 points.
deGrom received 105 first-place votes, with 633 points. Hamilton received 45 first-place votes and 503 points. Inciarte received two first-place votes, with 46 points.
My ballots:
AL: Abreu, Betances, Tanaka
NL: deGrom, Hamilton, Kyle Hendricks
I thought Hendricks, with his solid 13-start performance, rated a third-place vote. Not sure I understand the Inciarte third-place finish over Hendricks; Inciarte's numbers (.278/.318/.359, four HR, 19 SB in 118 games, 89 OPS+) are pretty pedestrian. He did compile 3.7 bWAR, largely due to his defense. Hendricks' 2.9 bWAR are pretty close to that, and his other numbers are better than Inciarte's.
The Baseball Writers Association of America RoY votes will be announced this evening on MLB Network in a show that begins at 5 p.m. CT. Feel free to use this post to discuss both the IBWAA selections and the BBWAA choices.