Kluber Edges Hernandez For Walter Johnson Award

In a thrilling race, some new blood emerged to win the American League Walter Johnson Award. Corey Kluber, the unexpected ace of the Cleveland Indians, nipped 2010 winner Felix Hernandez of Seattle by six points in voting held by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.

Kluber, who went 18-9 with a 2.44 ERA and a 152 ERA+, received eight of the possible 14 first place votes and 80 points overall. Hernandez received the other six first place nods and 74 total points, coming just short of being the second American League pitcher to have two Walter Johnsons on his mantle.

Unsurprisingly, it was a much different story in the National League as Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers won his third Walter Johnson in four years. Kershaw swept the voting, receiving all the first place votes and more than doubling the point total of the runner-up, St. Louis’s Adam Wainwright.

The complete voting results are as follows (first place votes in parenthesis):

American League

Corey Kluber, Cleveland (8) 80
Felix Hernandez, Seattle (6) 74
Jon Lester, Boston/Oakland 26
Chris Sale, Chicago 26
David Price, Tampa Bay/Detroit 19
Phil Hughes, Minnesota 10
Max Scherzer, Detroit 3

National League

Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles (14) 98
Adam Wainwright, St. Louis 47
Johnny Cueto, Cincinnati 43
Jordan Zimmerman, Washington 17
Cole Hamels, Philadelphia 11
Jake Arrieta, Chicago 6
Stephen Strasburg, Washington 6
Zack Greinke, Los Angeles 5
Madison Bumgarner, San Francisco 3
Doug Fister, Washington 2

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally. As of this writing, the organization consists of 215 blogs spanning most of the 30 major league squads as well as general baseball writing.

The BBA is organized under a similar structure as the Baseball Writers of America, where blogs that follow the same team are combined into “chapters” and only two votes from the chapter on an award are counted. The blog chapters that are focused on general baseball were allowed two votes as well, which they could use both on the same league or split between the two leagues.

Chapters generally followed one of two methods when casting their ballot. Either representatives of the chapter were given the ballots for voting or a “group ballot” was posted, accounting for both of their votes.

Notably, though the Alliance’s awards come out well before their official counterparts, the BBA selections have matched those of the Baseball Writers of America in most instances over the past five years. This, of course, does not include the Goose Gossage Award that is exclusive to the BBA.

Ballots are posted on the respective blogs and for this award, were tabulated on a 7-4-3-2-1 point scale for first through fifth place. In the interest of transparency, links to the ballots are shown below.

Prior Winners:
2013: Max Scherzer, Detroit; Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles
2012: Justin Verlander, Detroit; R.A. Dickey, New York
2011: Justin Verlander, Detroit; Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles
2010: Felix Hernandez, Seattle; Roy Halladay, Philadelphia
2009: Zack Greinke, Kansas City; Tim Lincecum, San Francisco

The official website of the BBA is located at baseballbloggersalliance.wordpress.com. The BBA can be found on Twitter by the handle @baseballblogs and by the hashmark #bbba. For more information, contact Daniel Shoptaw at baseballbloggersalliance@gmail.com.

American League

Boston Red Thoughts
The Tribe Daily
The Flagrant Fan
Misc. Baseball
North Dakota Twins Fan
Subway Squawkers
Victoria HarbourCats Baseball Blog
Seattle Mariners Musings
The Blue Jay Hunter
500 Level Fan