The full voting results here:

AL MVP
NL MVP
AL Cy Young
NL Cy Young

Mauer was a no-brainer in the traditional sense, not just in the sabermetrical sense. He was a good-fielding catcher who hit .365, winning his THIRD batting title. He has a chance to be the greatest catcher of all-time. That baseball writers almost voted him the AL MVP unanimously is not a massive development. Pujols winning unanimously isn’t a revelation either. Sure, it’s awesome that the right guys won the awards, but when you dig a little further into the balloting you still see some disappointing and baffling choices.

Chase Utley was left off 14 ballots. I chalk this up to the never-ending under-appreciation of Utley’s greatness. But what can you expect from the rest of the baseball world when I actually had an argument with a Phillies fan who said that Jayson Werth had a better year. Come to the Mets, Utley — I’ll respect you.

Ben Zobrist was left off 17 ballots. Basically the AL equivalent of Utley this season. I can understand that he doesn’t quite have the name recognition because he came out of nowhere, but by WAR he was easily one of the top 3 players in the AL. But since a lot of that value came from fielding, and he didn’t hit any magical numbers in his counting stats, he got screwed.

Ryan Howard finished ahead of Prince Fielder. The Phillies made the playoffs. The Brewers didn’t. I’m pretty sure it’s as simple as that. Or the voters really like five-dollar footlongs.

Mariano Rivera finished ahead of Zack Greinke. So the guy who ran away with the Cy Young award with a 2.16 ERA in 229.1 innings is less valuable than the robot who threw a quarter the amount of innings (66.1) to a 1.76 ERA? And Greinke actually had a lower FIP! Yankee mystique.

Jeremy Affeldt was put on a ballot. Speechless.

And that’s just a sampling from the MVP balloting. Now, I’m not saying there can’t be some differing opinions, but these five things are just WRONG.

The Cy Young voting is admittedly much more encouraging. The fact that Greinke and Lincecum won with 16 and 15 wins, respectively, is a huge step — but no pitcher hitting 20 wins for the first time ever might have had an effect on that. A sad fact is that in the NL, Adam Wainwright actually got more first-place votes than Lincecum — no doubt due to his 19 wins. A 20th win probably would have pushed him over the top. Chris Carpenter fell in between the two, and there was a huge outcry about Keith Law, who left Carpenter off his ballot.

The Cy Young balloting only includes three slots, and I thought Law’s reasoning was totally sound with regards to voting Javier Vasquez second and Wainwright third. I believe it boiled down to the fact that Carpenter pitched under 200 innings, and I think that’s a fairly reasonable stance. For him, it was Lincecum and then the next three guys in a toss-up, anyhow. It’s not like he voted for Jeremy Affeldt for MVP. And looking at the balloting, he wasn’t the only one to leave Carpenter off. This other guy must have voted Lincecum-Wainwright-Haren. That’s arguably a worse ballot.

…almost as bad as the guy who voted Justin Verlander first in the AL Cy Young voting — who I really hope wasn’t the same guy who screwed up Mauer’s unanimous win by penciling in Miguel Cabrera first. He needs to be stripped of his voting privileges if so.

So 2009 is wrapped up now. It’s time to look forward to the hot stove, while wondering how inefficiently the Mets will spend their money.

I can’t believe this freakish-looking piece of skinny garbage. He just choked in the fantasy equivalent of Game 7 of the World Series (not to mention the real-life implications). I WAS WINNING ALL WEEK AND YOU BLEW IT. Since the Mets didn’t provide me with a last-day collapse for the third straight year, I guess my fantasy team had to fill in.

I went into the day leading 5-4 in my Head-to-Head league in the matchup for the championship. With extremely modest leads in R, HR, and RBI, I figured I couldn’t count on winning those categories, so I needed to start Scott Baker, even if he hurt my ERA lead. I figured he would give me some strikeouts and possibly a win — the category that was tied going into the day. I wasn’t even concerned about Lincecum. I figured he would give me a bunch of Ks, help my ERA, and also possibly give me a win. The only starter going for my opponent? Ubaldo Jimenez. A decent pitcher, actually, but I didn’t think he’d end up with as many Ks as Baker and Lincecum combined. Or end up with a win while neither of my starters did. HOW THE FUCK DID THAT HAPPEN?!?!

Why did you have to destroy my fantasy life, Timmy? After Baker put up a shitty performance, I still wasn’t worried, since I figured you’d at the very least give me the win for Ks. But no, you had to pitch 4 innings, let up 5 ER, and only notch THREE measly fucking strikeouts. Baker had five! And I didn’t even end up losing the ERA battle by much — 3.69 to 3.81. IF ONLY YOU SUCKED MARGINALLY LESS I HAD THE CHAMPIONSHIP LOCKED UP!! Fuck this shit, give the Cy Young to Adam Wainwright or Chris Carpenter. Just drop it in the Cardinals’ clubhouse and let them have a ping-pong tournament for it or something. Wainwright just had 10 Ks tonight. That’s a Cy Young award winner, asshole. I can’t believe I voted for you in my poll.

And anyone who wants to criticize me for starting Baker: Fuck you. I explained my reasoning, and besides — if I left him on the bench and he had an awesome start, and I had lost one or two of those aforementioned offensive categories resulting in an overall loss, I would’ve been kicking myself right now. It’s much more fun ripping apart Lincecum for the stupidest reason ever. What a fucking loser. HAVE FUN MAKING COMMERCIALS DURING THE PLAYOFFS, DICKWAD.

I know I asked the general question, and I still would take Lincecum over him, but I figure Zack Greinke deserved a post. He’s been the best pitcher in baseball this season, and he SHOULD win the AL Cy Young in a landslide, but somehow the sportswriters will figure out a way to be total retards and vote for C.C. Sabathia or Justin Verlander. WINS!!!

I can throw out some stats with Baseball-Reference’s new embedding feature!

Only 13 wins?!?! He obviously doesn’t elevate the team around him! Not good enough! He doesn’t pitch to the score! He’s not deserving of the Cy Young, even though he leads the league in ERA, shutouts, and WHIP. And also FIP, but let’s not bring “made-up” statistics into this. But really, his ERA+ is 200. Holy fuck.

I was about to make this into a Cy Young argument post, complete with stats of other candidates, but I think such work can be left until the season is actually over. I just wanted to give Greinke some props. I don’t think the results on my poll are necessarily wrong, because Lincecum has been the best pitcher in the NL for two straight years (and I picked him too), and Halladay has been so consistently great for years in the toughest division in baseball — but Greinke seems to be somewhat forgotten.

Or maybe people just figure he’ll lose his mind again next year.