Vote for some baseball awards

It’s Election Day, which means that you should go out and vote, and it also means that soon we’ll get the results of the votes for baseball’s awards. The official BBWAA awards finalists were revealed yesterday, and the Giants were shut out. But one place they weren’t shut out was the MLB Awards, which is good because if they had been I wouldn’t have had anything to segue to at the end of this sentence.

The MLB awards are an online vote that I’ve never heard of before, but they can be found here on MLB.com, so I guess they mean something. Through November 11 at 11 AM Pacific time, you can vote for Giants in several categories, including:

Best Pitcher

Madison Bumgarner is up for the Best Pitcher award, going against Kyle Hendricks, Corey Kluber, Jon Lester, and Max Scherzer. Bumgarner had a great season, but then so did all of the others, which makes sense because this is literally an award for being good at pitching, so you wouldn’t expect to see Todd Wellemeyer in there.

I don’t really think that Bumgarner was the best pitcher in baseball this year, but if you disagree or would just like to vote for him as a show of support to the team you root for, you should vote for him.

Best Defensive Player

Brandon Crawford, superlative defender and shoulda been All Star, is nominated in this category. He’s up against Mookie Betts, Adam Eaton, Francisco Lindor, and Addison Russell. Now, they are all fine defenders and there’s not a Palmeiro in the bunch. However, if I may plead with you: Do not let Addison Russell win this. Addison Russell took Crawford’s place in the All-Star Game even though Crawford spent the entire year being better than him at everything except hitting dingers. Lindor is a great shortstop who could well be deserving of winning over Crawford. Betts and Eaton are both superlative outfielders and you could make an argument that their achievements were more impressive than Crawford’s. I wouldn’t, but someone could go nuts and do that.

There is no argument for Russell being better than Crawford. Vote for Brandon Crawford. Do not let Addison Russell get more votes than him. Isn’t it time someone stood up to the Cubs and their long tradition of winning?

But there were also the categories where Giants should have been nominated and weren’t, probably because the Giants are so disrespected and no one cares about us and don’t these people in the media or Esurance or MLB or wherever (I don’t actually know how these awards work) recognize greatness? They don’t, the cowards. How dare they?

You cannot vote for Giants in the following categories and it is an outrage:

Best Social Media Personality

Johnny Cueto was snubbed.

Snubbed!

Best Performance

This is an award for the best single game performance in baseball this year, and Brandon Crawford’s not nominated. Crawford had a 7-hit game this year. He had 7 hits in a game. He came to the plate 8 times and, 7 of those times, walked away with a hit. It was the sixth time in major league history - all of major league history - that someone got 7 hits in a game. I wrote a whole article about how it was greater than any other 7 hit game solely because I’m a biased Giants fan, and then the WPA stat said that I was actually right and it was the third best game anyone had ever had.

This was not one of the top 5 performances of the year, apparently.

I have no qualms with Max Scherzer’s 20 strikeout game being on the list; a pitcher striking out 20 in a game has also happened exactly 6 times in major league history and should be recognized. Noah Syndergaard’s 8 inning, 2 runs allowed, 2 homers hit, 4 runs driven in performance was also something special. I think Crawford’s game was better and more historical than that one, but hey, reasonable people can differ.

The other three games had no place being on the list if Crawford was left off. Jon Gray’s 16 strikeout Coors Field gem was spectacular, and the first time anyone had struck out 16 at Coors, so it’s impressive. But people have struck out 16 guys in a game before. Kris Bryant had a game where he hit 3 homers and 2 doubles, which is the first time that ever happened, but that’s more a statistical quirk than an impressive record. And Mookie Betts had a 3 homer, 8 RBI game, which, I mean, come on. Come on. That was better than 7 hits in a game? 7 hits in a game, including a game-tying 8th inning single, a leadoff extra innings triple, and the game winning RBI? Come on, man. Come on.

In conclusion, vote Bumgarner (if you want), vote Crawford, lament Cueto’s absence, and rend the shit out of some garments because Crawford got snubbed. These are my recommendations for these: The Fake Awards That No One Cares About But I Got A Post Out Of And Tangentially Tied It To The Election.