A couple years back myself, Brian Borawski, and Ryan Sosin decided to try and unite the group of Tigers bloggers. We came up with an acronym and a logo and then we decided to vote on some year end awards. This is the 3rd year of DIBS awards. This year’s winners are Magglio Ordonez for player of the year, Justin Verlander as pitcher of the year, and Curtis Granderson as breakout player of the year. There’s more description in the press release below, but I’ll just say that I voted for all the winners.
The Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes
Established 2005
Press Release
Nov. 29, 2007
For immediate release
ORDONEZ NAMED TIGERS PLAYER OF YEAR
Verlander top pitcher, Granderson breakout player
DETROIT — The Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes are proud to announce the results of the 2007 DIBS Awards balloting.
DIBS (Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes) is a collection of independent Web sites that cover the Detroit Tigers. Formed by Brian Borawski, Bill Ferris and Ryan Sosin in 2005 with the idea of uniting a community of fans and writers, DIBS is focused on improving and promoting the quality sports coverage taking place on the internet.
Magglio Ordonez was selected by 14 of 16 DIBS voters as the player of the year. The Tigers’ right fielder finished second in Most Valuable Player balloting by baseball writers this season. His .434 on-base-percentage coupled with a .595 slugging (1.029 OPS) made Ordonez a force at the plate all season. He hit 28 home runs and 54 doubles to go with 139 RBI. Curtis Granderson received the remaining two first-place votes. His 20 stolen bases, 20 doubles, 20 triples, 20 home runs season put him in rare air, allowing him to join just Willie Mays and Frank “Wildfire” Schulte at the time. A left-handed center fielder, Granderson got on base a .361 rate and slugged .552 (.913OPS). Placido Polanco, who completed an errorless season at second base, placed third overall with two second-place votes an 11 third.
Right-handed starter Justin Verlander was the unanimous selection for Tigers pitcher of the year. His no-hitter pitched against Milwaukee June 12 is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the Tigers season, but he was consistent throughout the year and finished 18-6 with an ERA of 3.66 and 1.23 WHIP. He struck out 183 and walked 67 in 201-2/3 innings pitched. Closer Todd Jones finished runner-up with 10 second-place and one third-place votes. He made 38 saves in 44 chances (86.4 percent success) and had a 4.26 ERA and 1.42 WHIP. Left-handed middle reliever Bobby Seay placed third overall with two second-place and eight third-place votes. He had a 2.33 ERA and 1.14 WHIP. He struck out 38 and walked 15 in 46-1/3 innings pitched.
Granderson was also named breakout player of the year with nine of 16 first-place votes. Utilityman Ryan Raburn, called up from Triple-A Toledo in July, finished second in balloting with four first-place, four second-place and four third-place votes. He got on base at a .304 rate and slugged .507 (.847 OPS) while playing in 49 games. He had four home runs, 12 doubles, two triples and 27 RBI. Pitcher Jair Jurrjens, now a member of the Atlanta Braves organization after being included in a trade for shortstop Edgar Renteria, finished third in voting with one first-place vote, five second-place votes and five third-place votes. Jurrjens started seven games for the Tigers. His ERA was 4.70 to go with a 1.14 WHIP. He struck out 13 and walked 11 in 30-2/3 innings pitched. Receiving his first start Aug. 15, Jurrjens pitched a span of games from Aug. 21 to Sept. 16 where he gave up just one run per game.
The blogs that voted included:
Roar of the Tigers
Mack Avenue Tigers
Out of Bounds/Johnny Grubb
Wayne Fontes Experience
Daily Fungo
Detroit Tiger Tales
Bless You Boys
Motown Sports Revival
Leelanau Sports Guy
The Fanhouse
D Town Baseball
Take 75 North
Grandy Report
From the Copa
Detroit Tigers Weblog
Tigerblog
Nice to see Bobby Seay get some recognition. I don’t understand why Jones got the 2nd place vote though. Cool idea to unite the bloggers.
Honestly, I would’ve voted Granderson for player of the year for the Tigers.
Yea Jones seems fishy
Miner or Byrdak seem like better choices.
I cannot see why anyone would rate Grady ahead of Magglio this past year.
While I like Granderson a lot. Maggs was nuts. PLUS as BOB S has pointed out Grandy didn’t do 2 well (one of the worst in the majors) against lefties.
I would have voted Guillen above Polanco but thats just me.
As far as breakout hmm… Grandy #1, then not sure other guys would prolly be Raburn, Timo, Byrdak and Seay
For those questioning Jones finishing 2nd, go ahead and name your top 3 Tigers pitchers from last year.
There’s a reason that Verlander was unanimous. After him it gets pretty muddy, and Jones was largely effective and healthy. More so at least than the rest of the staff.
Great job on the release guys.
Independent Baseball Scribes sure sounds alot more professional than bloggers. Anyway, you guys and gals did a terrific job. Of course, Magglio was #1. We may not see anyone put those kinds of numbers up for………well, for me I might be dead. You young kids might be in your fifties. I was disappointed at the end of the season, but we had so many special moments in 2007. The Tigers sure made it interesting.
I actually didn’t vote for Granderson because I thought he was too good last year to be considered a breakout player this year.
To echo what Bill said about the pitchers’ vote, it was easily the most difficult category to decide upon this year. And that’s indicative of why the Tigers ultimately didn’t make the playoffs.
I would’ve voted the pitchers like this: Verlander, Seay, and Durbin. Durbin did well in the multitude of roles Leyland asked him to pitch in – starter, long man, 8th inning, whatever.
For me it would have been Verlander, Seay and Byrdak although Durbin isn’t a bad choice
although Jones had a pretty good second half I think that game against Cleveland in Cleveland(June 1st) where Leyland left him in too long and he gave up 5 runs to lose it was one of the biggest games of the season
WELCOME BACK KENNY!!!
Doug Karsh and Boodini on 97.1 the Ticket and Jason Beck report that Kenny Rogers has resigned with us for probably 1 year and about 8 million
I hope it is true. =)
I’m pretty sure I voted Seay #2 and Jones #3 (hey, that was awhile ago!), because I felt Seay deserved the recognition and Jones did a pretty good job. I’ll echo the thought after #1, the second tier had a bunch of people more or less equal in my eyes.