Major League Baseball announces Rookies of the Year
Major League Baseball has announced the top rookies in both the American League (AL) and the National League (NL).
Candidates for the NL included Atlanta Braves outfielder Jason Heyward, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jaime Garcia, San Francisco catcher Buster Posey and Florida Marlins first basemen Gaby Sanchez.
After the votes were tallied, it was Buster Posey of the Giants who came out on top with 20 first place votes, 11 more than his closest competitor, Jason Heyward.
"I was just trying to make an impact with the team," said Posey to mlb.com. "It's surreal to have won the award."
It is a very prestigious award, and the first one given to a Giants player since Gary Matthews received the honour in 1973.
Posey finished the year appearing in 108 games, accumulating 124 hits, 18 home runs and 64 runs batted in. Not only did he have an excellent year at the plate, but defensively he was stellar behind the dish. He threw out 23 base runners, and made only six
errors which gave him a fielding percentage of .991.
"What Buster did handling the pitching staff, handling himself and hitting in the heart of the order shows you what a tremendous kid he is," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said to mlb.com. "It wasn't an easy task we put in front of him. But he's so strong mentally
that nothing fazed him."
Candidates for the AL award included the Detroit Tigers’ Austin Jackson, Minnesota Twins’ Danny Valencia, Wade Davis from the Tampa Bay Rays and Neftali Feliz from the Texas Rangers.
When the votes were tallied, Neftali Feliz was determined to be the one honoured as he received 20 first place votes, 12 better than Jackson.
Feliz is a pitcher with the World Series runner-up Texas Rangers, and he had a stellar year. He saved 40 games out of 43 and finished with a 4-3 record as a set-up man and closer. In 69.1 innings pitched, he gave up 43 hits, 18 walks and he had an earned
run average of 2.73, while striking out 71. That gave him a WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) of 0.88.
"It is incredible," Feliz said to mlb.com. "I have to thank my teammates. It was a great season and we had a great year. I feel honored to receive this recognition and I feel very proud of it."
Feliz was one of those power pitchers who had a stunning fastball which ranges between 95-100 mph, so most batters would be “window shoppers” at the plate, unable to get the bat off their shoulder to catch up to his over powering stuff.
"I'm very happy for him," Rangers manager Ron Washington said to mlb.com. "He deserves it. He was a big part of where we got to, all the way to the World Series. He handled himself extremely well. I didn't see another rookie who was more important to his
team than he was to ours."
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