BtBWAA Awards: AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander

by Lewie Pollis on Nov 1, 2011 3:00 PM EDT in Awards & Honors

We've named our Executive of the Year. We've covered the AL Rookie of the Year, and for good measure we did the NL, too. This week, the BtBWAA awards keep rolling along with our 2011 Cy Young Awards.

Here are our picks for the best hurlers in the Junior Circuit (NL results to come later this week). As with the real BBWAA vote, we each picked five players and our ballots were scored with a 7-4-3-2-1 system. First-place votes are in parentheses.

1.	Justin Verlander, Tigers — 74 (10)
2.	CC Sabathia, Yankees — 43
3.	Jered Weaver, Angels — 19

Full results after the jump.

4.	Dan Haren, Angels — 18
T5.	Bruce Chen, Royals — 7 (1)
T5.	James Shields, Rays — 7
T5.	C.J. Wilson, Rangers — 7
T8.	Felix Hernandez, Mariners — 3
T8.	Brandon McCarthy, Athletics — 3
T10.	Josh Beckett, Red Sox — 2
T10.	David Price, Rays — 2
T12.	Doug Fister, Tigers — 1
T12.	Justin Masterson, Indians — 1

Every ballot had the same Nos. 1 and 2 finishers save for Matt Klaasen, who pushed Verlander and Sabathia down a slot each and named Chen his pitcher of the year. Still, we in the BtBWAA respect the democratic principle that everyone has a right to be wrong, so unlike our friends at FanGraphs we counted his vote and did not flog him for it.

If anyone's interested in my ballot, after Verlander and Sabathia I went with Haren, Wilson, and Masterson, in that order. Like my vote for Vinnie Pestano in the Rookie of the Year balloting, my naming Masterson was because I'm an Indians fan, but he's certainly worthy of consideration and since I was the only one who picked him I'm glad I did. I snubbed Chen only because I voted for him for NL Cy Young.

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