Tuesday night, we found out the winners of the 2011 Gold Glove awards. The winners were supposed to be announced during a special show on ESPN2, but the show was delayed by a college football game between two teams nobody cares about. Well apparently, on Wednesday, the winners of the 2011 Silver Slugger awards were also announced on television. This is news to me, but it’s minor news, because I don’t care about the Silver Slugger awards, and neither do you.
2011 Silver Slugger Award Winners Named; David Ortiz, Brian McCann Win Fifth
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But, what the hell, I might as well show you the winners. Presented below is a table. The table includes the names of the winners, the number of Silver Slugger awards each player has won in his career, and whether or not the player should have won the award in 2011. This is a very simple matter. The Silver Slugger is supposed to go to the best offensive player at each position. A guy either is the best offensive player at his position, or he is not.
Voting is done by coaches and managers. Three outfielders are selected in each league, rather than one outfielder at each of the three outfield positions.
| AMERICAN LEAGUE | |||
| Position | Winner | #Wins | Deserving |
| C | Alex Avila | 1 | Yes* |
| 1B | Adrian Gonzalez | 1 | No |
| 2B | Robinson Cano | 3 | No |
| SS | Asdrubal Cabrera | 1 | No |
| 3B | Adrian Beltre | 3 | No |
| OF | Curtis Granderson | 1 | Yes |
| OF | Jose Bautista | 2 | Yes |
| OF | Jacoby Ellsbury | 1 | Yes |
| DH | David Ortiz | 5 | Yes |
| NATIONAL LEAGUE | |||
| Position | Winner | #Wins | Deserving |
| C | Brian McCann | 5 | No |
| 1B | Prince Fielder | 2 | Yes |
| 2B | Brandon Phillips | 1 | No |
| SS | Troy Tulowitzki | 2 | No |
| 3B | Aramis Ramirez | 1 | No |
| OF | Ryan Braun | 4 | Yes |
| OF | Matt Kemp | 2 | Yes |
| OF | Justin Upton | 1 | No |
| P | Daniel Hudson | 1 | No |
* depending on what you make of Mike Napoli
Yikes, that doesn't seem very good. The table above shows eight deserving winners, and ten undeserving winners. But in truth, a lot of these are close, and the only egregious selection is Adrian Gonzalez over Miguel Cabrera. There is absolutely no question that Miguel Cabrera was a better offensive first baseman this year than Adrian Gonzalez.
But Cabrera’s won before, so whatever. And these are the Silver Sluggers, so whatever. If you raise a stink about anything here you should seriously re-evaluate the life that you’re living.
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