Our Postseason Baseball Awards

Because we’re all in such chipper moods when it comes to baseball around here – we really hope our Padres and Cubs are enjoying those long winters…jerks – we thought it was about time to start passing out our postseason awards, since our teams are out of it and the rest of the playoffs are pretty much worthless. Our awards are just a little different from the typical “reward the best” trophy guys. No, we like to see the beauty in failure. I mean why else would two of us love the Padres while the other is a Cubs fan?

Anthony Young Award
Named for the former New York Met who once lost a staggering 27-straight decisions in 1992-93, this award goes to the Major League pitcher who is determined to have had the worst season.

Winner: Kip Wells, St. Louis Cardinals
Wells solidified his position and won the award with 16 earned runs in six September outings. He finished the year with a 7-17 record, a 5.70 ERA, a 1.62 WHIP and opposing batters hit .287 against him. In just 162 2/3 innings, he gave up 186 hits, 103 earned runs, 78 walks and 19 home runs. He started the season 1-8 and from April 14 to May 16 he lost seven straight decisions. On 11 different occasions this season Wells gave up five or more runs in an appearance.

Dishonorable Mention: Anthony Reyes (2-14, 6.04 ERA), Jose Contreras (10-17, 5.57), Daniel Cabrera (9-18, 5.55), Adam Eaton (10-10, 6.29).

Rob Deer Award
This award’s namesake was notorious for striking out…a lot. But this distinction has nothing to do with the big “K,” no, in fact it recognizes general offensive futility (we call it Padre-itis). It goes to the player who has the worst offensive season in the Major Leagues, much like Mr. Deer did in 1991 while playing for the Detroit Tigers. That year he appeared in 134 games and hit .179 while leading the majors in strikeouts with an astonishing 175 K’s in 448 at bats.

Winner: Nick Punto, Minnesota Twins
With apologies to Brandon Inge, Nick Punto is the worst offensive regular in baseball. The Twins third baseman redefined awful this year. In 150 games he hit .210, with one home run, 25 RBIs and just 55 walks compared to 90 strikeouts. He also carried an anemic .291 OBP and slugged an awful .271. In 472 at-bats he totaled just 23 extra base hits. Good luck working construction next year Nick!

Dishonorable Mention: Brandon Inge (.236, 14 HRs, 71 RBIs), Marcus Giles (.229, 4, 39), Richie Sexson (.205, 21, 63).

Mike Hampton Award
Come on, this is obvious. It goes to the player who was the biggest waste of money in the Major Leagues. Hampton got an eight-year, $121 million deal with the Rockies in 2001 and proceeded to go 21-28 over the next two seasons with ERAs of 5.14 and 6.15. A little note here, we only considered players who stayed off the disabled list for the better part of the season. Otherwise Jason Schmidt would have won hands down. No we stuck with players who proved they sucked on the field.

Winner: Barry Zito, San Francisco Giants
We all know the story, Zito and his 85-mph fastball signed a seven-year, $126 million contract with the Giants – the richest ever for a pitcher – and sucked. This is such an obvious pick we almost didn’t make it. But here are the stats for you, just to further embarrass Giants GM Brian Sabean. Zito started 33 games, had a record of 11-13, with a 4.53 ERA and a 1.35 WHIP. He walked 83 while only striking out 131 in 196 2/3 innings. Gave up 182 hits, 99 earned runs, 24 home runs and opponents hit .244 against him. The 29-year-old’s diminishing skills were obvious all season and the Giants will still be paying him when he’s 35. Awesome. For all of the fans of NL West teams I’d just like to say thank you to the San Francisco Giants.

Dishonorable Mention: Vicente Padilla (6-10, 5.76), Andruw Jones (.222, 26, 94), J.D. Drew (.270, 11, 64)

Mitch Williams Award
Pretty simple, this one goes to the worst appearance by a pitcher on the year. Poor Mitch, think he’s been reminded of this a few times?

Winner: Jason Jennings, Houston Astros
Seriously, Jennings might have had the worst outing in modern baseball history on July 29 against the Padres. He gave up 11 runs in just 2/3 of an inning, becoming the first player in the modern era to allow 11 earned runs in a first inning. His ERA for the game was 148.50 and his ERA for the season jumped from 4.74 to 5.99 over the course of just 39 pitches. He gave up eight hits, three walks and two home runs. I can’t stress this enough people: it was in less than an inning!

Dishonorable Mention: There was no second place in this category.