Award Season: Which Phillies Made the Grade So Far
Despite an early exit from the playoffs, the Phillies 102 regular season wins and stellar individual performances have earned some players much deserved honors.
Earlier this offseason, Placido Polanco was awarded a Gold Glove for his work at third base. Polly also won the award playing second base for the Tigers in 2007 and 2009. He and Darin Erstad are now the only two players in big league history to win a Gold Glove at multiple positions.
MLB.com also handed out awards on Monday. Ryan Howard was named the club's Player of the Year, while right-hander Roy Halladay was chosen the team's Pitcher of the Year. And rookie right-hander Vance Worley was voted the Breakout Player of the Year.
Not to be outdone, the Philadelphia chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America put its two cents in as well. Center-fielder Shane Victorino was the winner of the Mike Schmidt Award for Most Valuable Player and left-hander Cliff Lee received the Steve Carlton Award for Most Valuable pitcher.
The big awards come out next week which will include Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year and the Cy Young award. It is expect that many Phillies will be considered for these top honors, but realistically, none of them will win. Charlie Manuel is overlooked every year in the manager category; Worley will probably lose out to Freddie Freeman. As for the Cy Young, both Halladay and Lee will probably get passed over in favor of Clayton Kershaw who had 21 wins and an almost invisible 2.28 ERA.
Of course, anything can happen. But those are my predictions...how about you? Leave your best guess in the comments and we will see who gets it right.
And if anyone missed it, here is my annual Phillies Photo Tribute slideshow. Enjoy!
Photos by Jenn Zambri Photography
