Trevor Brown, backup catcher of the future and possibly present, won the 2016 Barney Nugent award on Sunday. The award, voted on by teammates, coaches, and training staff, goes to the "player in his first big league camp whose performance and dedication in Spring Training best exemplifies the San Francisco Giants spirit." Brown hit .324 in the spring, and baseball bats hit him. The combination of the two made it an easy choice.
Brown saw some time in the majors last year, but this is still his first big-league camp, which speaks to just how far he rose last year. Teams like to have thousands of catchers in camp, just barrels of them, some of them random ballpark workers who have never played baseball in their lives, to help catch all of the pitchers. Somehow Brown wasn't a part of that last year, but he's certainly made up for it.
A list of the past winners:
- 1988 - Joe Kmak, Francisco Melendez
- 1989 - James Steel
- 1990 - Eric Gunderson
- 1991 - Mark Leonard
- 1992 - John Patterson
- 1993 - Greg Brummett
- 1994 - J.R. Phillips
- 1995 - Joe Rosselli
- 1996 - Marvin Benard
- 1997 - Dante Powell
- 1998 - Russ Ortiz
- 1999 - Damon Minor
- 2000 - Ben Weber
- 2001 - Pedro Feliz
- 2002 - Felix Escalona
- 2003 - Jason Ellison
- 2004 - Brian Dallimore
- 2005 - Scott Munter
- 2006 - Derin McMains
- 2007 - Tim Lincecum
- 2008 - Brian Bocock
- 2009 - Joe Martinez
- 2010 - Darren Ford
- 2011 - Brandon Belt
- 2012 - Dan Otero
- 2013 - Brock Bond
- 2014 - Mark Minicozzi
- 2015 - Matt Duffy
Does this mean that Brown will finish second in the Rookie of the Year voting this season, like Duffy did last season? Probably.
And, of course, the real winner here is groug, who predicted Brown as the winner of this award way back in February. It's seems like an impressive accomplishment, until you realize that this is the greatest moment of forecasting brilliance groug will ever enjoy, and he wasted it on this. His kids will wonder why he didn't buy Roomple.com stock before it was $400 a share, and he'll say, "I don't know. But let me tell you about the time Trevor Brown won the Barney Nugent Award!"
Just let him tell the story, kids. It's a good story. And congratulations to Trevor Brown, who might make the team as a third catcher, or who might be the backup catcher of the near future. He's already an award-winning backup catcher if you want to get technical.