SBN Awards: Rookie of the Year

Eric P. Mull-US PRESSWIRE

The annual SB Nation award season kicks off with the big league's best virgin seasons of 2012.

Just ahead of the BBWAA awards, the SB Nation awards begin with each league's Rookie of the Year award. A couple of grounds rules: we had two ballots for the site; ours were submitted by Andrew Mearns and Tanya Bondurant. They voted only for AL winners, so we didn't muddy our hands with any Senior Crcuit stuff. Otherwise, the procedure here is the same as the official award, with the top three candidates being named.

The results:

Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Points
Mike Trout	Los Angeles Angels	26			130
Yu Darvish	Texas Rangers		16	7	55
Yoenis Cespedes	Oakland Athletics		9	10	37
Jarrod Parker	Oakland Athletics		1	6	9
Jesus Montero	Seattle Mariners			1	1
Matt Moore	Tampa Bay Rays			1	1
Wei-Yin Chen	Baltimore Orioles			1	1

Our PB voters were just a little out of step with the the general mood. As the unanimous selection of Trout would suggest, both Andrew and Tanya named him tops on their ballots, but each had Yoenis Cespedes second and Yu Darvish third. We were not the site that listed Jesus Montero.

The NL ballots:

Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Points
Bryce Harper	Washington Nationals	26	9		157
Wade Miley	Arizona Diamondbacks	8	21	5	108
Todd Frazier	Cincinnati Reds	1	4	9	26
Norichika Aoki	Milwaukee Brewers			14	14
Zack Cozart	Cincinnati Reds		1	2	5
Andrelton Simmons	Atlanta Braves			1	1
Anthony Rizzo	Chicago Cubs			1	1
Lucas Harrell	Houston Astros			1	1
Mike Fiers	Milwaukee Brewers			1	1
Yasmani Grandal	San Diego Padres			1	1

The NL had its own teenage phenom in Bryce Harper, and perhaps a deeper group overall, but no one with a season as historically significant as Trout's. Harper's season was great by the standards of his age, but it wasn't great overall. As such, there was a little more room for disparate opinions among the voters.