Roy Halladay and Felix Hernandez are Walter Johnson Award Winners

2010 was often referred to as “the year of the pitcher.” However, not all pitchers are created equal.

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance announced today that Philadelphia’s Roy Halladay was the unanimous selection for the National League Walter Johnson Award, receiving all nineteen first place votes. In the American League, Seattle’s Felix Hernandez was almost as dominant, garnering all but four of the first place selections from the BBA membership.

Halladay, who came over to Philadelphia in an off-season deal with Toronto, wasted no time getting comfortable in his new league, posting an 2.44 ERA, striking out 219 batters, winning 21 games, and throwing a perfect game to boot. While only the regular season was considered for voting, he also became only the second player to throw a post-season no-hitter when he faced the Reds in the National League Divisional Series. Halladay received 133 points, well ahead of the runner up, St. Louis’s Adam Wainwright, who received 66.

Hernandez’s win was statistically more impressive, due to more ballots being cast in the American League and a wider range of pitchers receiving votes. His 2010 season, where he put up a sparkling 2.27 ERA, a 1.06 WHIP, and struck out 232 in just under 250 innings pitched, led voters to bestow upon him 137 points, with second place being New York’s CC Sabathia, who received three first place votes and 62 points over all.

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

American League
Felix Hernandez, Seattle (18) 137
CC Sabathia, New York (3) 62
David Price, Tampa Bay (1) 57
Cliff Lee, Seattle/Texas 41
Jered Weaver, Los Angeles 22
Jon Lester, Boston 18
Clay Buchholz, Boston 14
Francisco Liriano, Minnesota 13
Trevor Cahill, Oakland 5
Justin Verlander, Detroit 5

National League
Roy Halladay, Philadelphia (19) 133
Adam Wainwright, St. Louis 66
Ubaldo Jimenez, Colorado 52
Josh Johnson, Florida 43
Tim Hudson, Atlanta 16
Tim Lincecum, San Francisco 7
Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles 2
Mat Latos, San Diego 2
Heath Bell, San Diego 1
Yovani Gallardo, Milwaukee 1

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 233 blogs spanning all 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.

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 are given below for the ballots. Chapter affiliation is in parenthesis. Those chapters that decided on the group method are noted with an asterisk.

American League
Camden Crazies (Baltimore)*
Boston Red Thoughts (Boston)*
The Tribe Daily (Cleveland)*
Motor City Bengals (Detroit)
Detroit Tigers Scorecard Blog (Detroit)
One Royal Way (Kansas City)*
Twins Target (Minnesota)
Bronx Baseball Daily (New York)*
Contract Year (Oakland)
Sodo Mojo (Seattle)
Tampa Bay Rays News (Tampa Bay)
1 Blue Jays Way (Toronto)
Infield Fly (Toronto)
Misc. Baseball (History)*
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)*
Blogging From The Bleachers (General)*
Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)*

National League
Marlin Maniac (Florida)
Marlins Diehards (Florida)
Feeling Dodger Blue (Los Angeles)
The Eddie Kranepool Society (New York)*
Dugger’s Corner (Philadelphia)
Phighting On (Philadelphia)
Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? (Pittsburgh)*
Stan Musial’s Stance (St. Louis)
C70 At The Bat (St. Louis)
Friar Forecast (San Diego)*
22gigantes (San Francisco)*
Misc. Baseball (History)*
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)*
Blogging From The Bleachers (General)*
Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)*

Prior Winners: 2009: Zach Greinke, Kansas City; Tim Lincecum, San Francisco

The official website of the BBA is located at www.baseballbloggersalliance.com. The BBA can be found on Twitter by the handle @baseballblogs and by the hashmark #bbba. Members of the BBA may be heard at Blog Talk Radio every Tuesday night with their call-in show, BBA Baseball Talk, which may also be downloaded as a podcast from iTunes. For more information, contact Daniel Shoptaw at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com.

Fantasy Spin on the Halladay Trade, Pierre Trade, and Much More!

Photo from fOTOGLIF

The Philadelphia Phillies acquired ace right-hander Roy Halladay (and $6 million) by sending prospects RHP Kyle Drabek, OF Michael Taylor and C Travis d'Arnaud to the Toronto Blue Jays. ESPN.com reported that Halladay will receive $20 million per year in 2011, 2012 and 2013. The extension also includes a $20 million vesting option for 2014 based on innings pitched, games started or both. The Phillies required an extension with Halladay to make the trade.

Roy Halladay is going to be incredible for the Phillies. He does move to a worse ballpark but he gets a better defense, offense, and league in exchange. He instantly becomes the number one fantasy pitcher in the game in my book. You can't predict wins very easily but I see a ton of them in Halladay's future.

The Blue Jays send freshly acquired prospect Michael Taylor to the Oakland Athletics for top prospect 3B Brett Wallace. Brett Wallace was sent to the Athletics in exchange for Matt Holliday last season. To me this indicates that the A's either saw something in Wallace they did not like or they really like Michael Taylor.

Wallace is ready to make his major league debut. Moving to the Blue Jays should not delay that debut any further. Edwin Encarnacion would have to have a very good spring to look like a better hitter than Wallace and he isn't much better defensively (if at all). Wallace will hit for a high average and solid power.

The Phillies are also sending LHP Cliff Lee (presumably for salary reasons but also to re-stock the farm system after sending some of their best to Toronto) to the Seattle Mariners for group of prospects including RHP Phillippe Aumont, OF Tyson Gillies and RHP J.C. Ramirez. Lee was apparently determined to reach free agency so he could sign a Sabathia-like contract.

Playing in front of Seattle's defense and in Safeco Field also provides Cliff Lee with a huge statistical boost. If he wasn't already he now looks like a top five pitcher. If the Mariners find a couple of middle of the order hitters to go with their great set-up hitters they should make a very nice run in 2010.

From MLB.com (Not really fantasy relevant, just something to know)
A group headed by Pittsburgh sports attorney Chuck Greenberg has been selected by Rangers owner Tom Hicks to enter into exclusive negotiations to buy the franchise, according to an official announcement made by Hicks Sports Group on Tuesday.

Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan has committed to being a part of Greenberg's group and would remain in his current position as club president. Greenberg is expected to hold the position of managing general partner.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have sent outfielder Juan Pierre to the Chicago White Sox for two minor leaguers. Pierre will play left field and hit leadoff according to reports in According to FoxSports.com, those two Minor Leaguers are starter John Ely, who won 14 games in 2009 at Double-A Birmingham, and Jon Link, who was once thought of as a potential late-inning reliever. Juan Pierre is one of those players that is a better fantasy player than real player (not that he's useless, just better for fantasy).

I expect Pierre to return to his fairly good average, lots of stolen base ways in 2010. He is not the player he used to be but he should be a quality fantasy player if you can deal with the lack of power.

Top Starters Ranked By FIP

Name	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	BABIP	FIP
Tim Lincecum	10.53	3.23	0.44	0.312	2.59
Cliff Lee	6.85	1.37	0.48	0.305	2.83
Joba Chamberlain	10.19	3.44	0.55	0.337	2.9
CC Sabathia	8.93	2.1	0.68	0.306	2.91
Rich Harden	11.01	3.71	0.67	0.265	2.95
Dan Haren	8.58	1.67	0.79	0.315	3.01
Roy Halladay	7.53	1.44	0.66	0.294	3.05
Josh Beckett	8.88	1.76	0.93	0.327	3.24
Derek Lowe	6.27	1.92	0.6	0.287	3.26
Brandon Webb	7.27	2.58	0.52	0.297	3.28
Ervin Santana	8.79	1.93	0.95	0.302	3.3
Mike Mussina	6.74	1.39	0.76	0.322	3.32
Josh Johnson	7.94	2.78	0.72	0.332	3.37
Ben Sheets	7.17	2.13	0.77	0.29	3.38
Chad Billingsley	9.03	3.62	0.64	0.322	3.38
Ryan Dempster	8.14	3.31	0.61	0.288	3.41
John Danks	7.34	2.63	0.69	0.299	3.44
A.J. Burnett	9.35	3.47	0.78	0.325	3.45
Johan Santana	7.91	2.42	0.88	0.287	3.51
Edinson Volquez	9.45	4.26	0.6	0.308	3.54
Zack Greinke	8.14	2.49	0.93	0.318	3.56
Hiroki Kuroda	5.69	2.06	0.64	0.295	3.59
Jair Jurrjens	6.64	3.35	0.53	0.311	3.59
Jake Peavy	8.6	3.06	0.88	0.285	3.6
Gil Meche	7.83	3.12	0.81	0.311	3.61
Wandy Rodriguez	8.58	2.88	0.92	0.323	3.62
Jon Lester	6.5	2.82	0.6	0.299	3.64
Justin Duchscherer	6.04	2.16	0.7	0.24	3.69
Andy Pettitte	6.97	2.43	0.84	0.339	3.71
Cole Hamels	7.76	2.1	1.11	0.27	3.72
Javier Vazquez	8.64	2.64	1.08	0.328	3.74
Chien-Ming Wang	5.12	3.32	0.38	0.287	3.74
Aaron Cook	4.09	2.04	0.55	0.308	3.76
Randy Johnson	8.46	2.15	1.17	0.316	3.76
Chris Volstad	5.68	3.72	0.33	0.283	3.76
Adam Wainwright	6.2	2.32	0.82	0.281	3.78
Ricky Nolasco	8.06	1.79	1.22	0.288	3.79
Scott Baker	7.36	2.19	1.04	0.29	3.79
Roy Oswalt	7.12	2.03	0.99	0.294	3.8
Felix Hernandez	7.85	3.59	0.76	0.316	3.8
Dustin McGowan	6.87	3.07	0.73	0.316	3.81
James Shields	6.7	1.67	1	0.292	3.82
Ubaldo Jimenez	7.79	4.67	0.5	0.306	3.83
Tim Hudson	5.43	2.55	0.7	0.267	3.83
Jonathan Sanchez	8.94	4.27	0.8	0.327	3.85
Francisco Liriano	7.93	3.79	0.83	0.313	3.87
Kyle Lohse	5.36	2.21	0.81	0.303	3.89
Andrew Miller	7.15	4.47	0.54	0.353	3.9
Jered Weaver	7.74	2.75	1.02	0.306	3.9
Kevin Slowey	6.9	1.35	1.23	0.297	3.91
Matt Cain	7.69	3.76	0.79	0.304	3.91
Andy Sonnanstine	5.77	1.72	0.98	0.312	3.91
Mark Buehrle	5.76	2.14	0.91	0.314	3.94
Manny Parra	7.98	4.25	0.79	0.34	3.96
Mike Pelfrey	4.93	2.87	0.54	0.302	3.96
Jorge de la Rosa	8.78	4.13	0.89	0.33	3.98
Kevin Millwood	6.67	2.61	0.96	0.366	4.02
Chris Sampson	4.37	1.94	0.81	0.33	4.03
Daisuke Matsuzaka	8.27	5.05	0.64	0.267	4.03
Clayton Kershaw	8.44	4.3	0.93	0.323	4.06
Shawn Hill	5.54	3.27	0.71	0.373	4.06
Greg Maddux	4.55	1.39	0.97	0.29	4.09
Dana Eveland	6.32	4.13	0.54	0.313	4.09
Cha Seung Baek	6.05	2.55	0.96	0.31	4.1
Brett Tomko	6.17	2	1.17	0.342	4.11
Matt Garza	6.24	2.88	0.93	0.278	4.14
Doug Davis	6.9	3.95	0.8	0.329	4.15
Paul Maholm	6.06	2.75	0.92	0.289	4.15
Randy Wolf	7.66	3.36	0.99	0.312	4.17
Justin Verlander	7.3	3.9	0.81	0.305	4.18
Jose Contreras	5.21	2.6	0.89	0.303	4.21
Kyle Davies	5.65	3.42	0.8	0.309	4.22
Carlos Zambrano	6.2	3.43	0.86	0.277	4.23
Jorge Campillo	5.91	2.17	1.18	0.295	4.27
Jesse Litsch	4.94	2.03	0.99	0.282	4.28
Erik Bedard	8	4.11	1	0.281	4.32
Jamie Moyer	5.64	2.84	0.92	0.294	4.32
Boof Bonser	5.7	2.71	1.09	0.309	4.34
Joe Saunders	4.68	2.41	0.95	0.267	4.36
Scott Kazmir	9.81	4.14	1.36	0.275	4.37
Zach Miner	4.79	2.33	0.98	0.291	4.39
John Maine	7.84	4.31	1.03	0.28	4.4
Sean Gallagher	8.25	4.61	0.97	0.323	4.4
Nick Blackburn	4.47	1.82	1.07	0.309	4.4
Zach Duke	4.23	2.29	0.92	0.327	4.4
Chris Young	8.18	4.22	1.14	0.266	4.4
Ted Lilly	8.09	2.81	1.41	0.283	4.41
Luke Hochevar	5.02	3.28	0.84	0.31	4.43
Phil Dumatrait	6.05	4.5	0.78	0.306	4.46
Shaun Marcum	7.31	2.97	1.25	0.257	4.46
Bronson Arroyo	7.34	3.06	1.31	0.321	4.5
Todd Wellemeyer	6.29	2.91	1.17	0.273	4.51
Joe Blanton	5.05	3.01	1	0.297	4.52
Brett Myers	7.72	3.08	1.37	0.311	4.52
Braden Looper	4.88	2.04	1.13	0.297	4.52
John Lackey	7.16	2.2	1.43	0.29	4.53
Jeremy Guthrie	5.66	2.74	1.13	0.267	4.53
Brian Moehler	5	2.09	1.2	0.297	4.54
Ian Snell	7.39	4.87	0.99	0.358	4.57
Jason Marquis	4.91	3.73	0.81	0.29	4.58
Kevin Correia	5.36	3.78	0.88	0.328	4.59
Odalis Perez	6.71	3.1	1.24	0.326	4.62
Carlos Silva	4.05	1.88	1.17	0.347	4.63
Zach Jackson	4.94	2.3	1.15	0.315	4.63
David Purcey	8.03	4.02	1.25	0.316	4.67
Oliver Perez	8.35	4.87	1.11	0.28	4.68
Jarrod Washburn	5.16	2.85	1.13	0.311	4.7
Dallas Braden	4.61	2.7	1.11	0.292	4.72
Barry Zito	6	5.1	0.8	0.305	4.72
Micah Owings	7.42	3.22	1.25	0.305	4.72
Darrell Rasner	5.23	3	1.11	0.33	4.72
Joel Pineiro	4.94	2.1	1.36	0.316	4.74
Jon Garland	4.12	2.7	1.05	0.315	4.76
Gavin Floyd	6.32	3.05	1.31	0.268	4.77
Jeff Karstens	4.03	2.28	1.23	0.287	4.77
John Lannan	5.79	3.56	1.14	0.273	4.79
Jeff Francis	5.89	3.07	1.32	0.315	4.81
Armando Galarraga	6.35	2.97	1.38	0.25	4.81
Gregory Smith	5.25	4.11	0.99	0.258	4.82
Edwin Jackson	5.31	3.77	1.09	0.3	4.82
Clay Buchholz	8.52	4.8	1.32	0.366	4.83
Seth McClung	7.07	4.1	1.13	0.278	4.84
Tim Wakefield	5.82	2.98	1.24	0.247	4.84
Sidney Ponson	3.88	3.21	0.94	0.327	4.85
Anibal Sanchez	8.71	4.7	1.22	0.329	4.87
Aaron Laffey	4.13	2.98	0.96	0.296	4.88
Fausto Carmona	4.33	5.22	0.52	0.297	4.89
Johnny Cueto	8.17	3.52	1.5	0.309	4.9
Aaron Harang	7.19	2.45	1.75	0.315	4.91
Tim Redding	5.93	3.21	1.34	0.299	4.93
Mike Hampton	4.38	3.23	1.15	0.286	4.94
Livan Hernandez	3.35	2.15	1.25	0.345	4.94
Nate Robertson	5.76	3.13	1.4	0.34	4.95
David Bush	5.32	2.34	1.44	0.248	4.98
Scott Olsen	5.04	3.08	1.34	0.266	5.02
Brian Bannister	5.57	2.86	1.43	0.316	5.03
Vicente Padilla	6.68	3.42	1.37	0.309	5.03
Jo-Jo Reyes	6.04	3.92	1.31	0.325	5.04
Jeremy Sowers	4.76	2.9	1.34	0.307	5.05
Jason Bergmann	6.41	3.1	1.58	0.304	5.05
Ryan Rowland-Smith	4.75	3.37	1.25	0.276	5.09
Adam Eaton	4.85	3.72	1.12	0.319	5.09
Charlie Morton	5.82	4.71	1.11	0.31	5.1
Collin Balester	5.62	3.15	1.35	0.313	5.11
Brad Penny	4.9	3.94	1.15	0.311	5.12
Garrett Olson	5.63	4.21	1.15	0.342	5.13
Glen Perkins	4.41	2.32	1.49	0.31	5.14
Paul Byrd	4.1	1.7	1.55	0.289	5.14
Matt Harrison	4.52	3.33	1.29	0.312	5.18
Pedro Martinez	7.18	3.63	1.57	0.329	5.18
Jeremy Bonderman	5.55	4.54	1.14	0.296	5.18
Brian Burres	4.4	3.28	1.27	0.321	5.18
Josh Banks	4.48	3.18	1.3	0.292	5.19
Kenny Rogers	4.25	3.68	1.14	0.318	5.22
Kason Gabbard	5.3	6.27	0.8	0.321	5.26
Scott Feldman	4.24	3.24	1.25	0.282	5.28
Mark Hendrickson	5.44	3.48	1.43	0.317	5.29
Christopher Waters	4.59	4.04	1.25	0.29	5.41
Kyle Kendrick	3.96	3.32	1.28	0.317	5.48
Jeff Suppan	4.56	3.39	1.52	0.301	5.51
Justin Masterson	6.5	4.67	1.33	0.22	5.56
Daniel Cabrera	4.75	4.5	1.2	0.298	5.61
Shawn Chacon	5.57	4.31	1.68	0.276	5.83
R.A. Dickey	4.48	4.36	1.53	0.324	5.84
Brandon Backe	6.86	4.16	1.94	0.326	5.87
Tom Glavine	5.26	5.26	1.56	0.283	6.02
Radhames Liz	6.08	5.44	1.71	0.315	6.17
Miguel Batista	5.52	6.01	1.48	0.338	6.18
Tom Gorzelanny	5.72	5.98	1.71	0.303	6.35
Josh Fogg	5.2	3.32	2.31	0.314	6.66
Gregory Reynolds	2.95	3.84	2.07	0.312	6.94