Awards & Accolades

Several items I didn’t want to get by without comment before we start obsessing about the playoffs.

Before last night’s game started several Bulls were called out for the Goodman Awards and it was a fine and apt selection indeed.

• Most Valuable Player — Elliot Johnson
• Pitcher of the Year — Richard De Los Santos
• Team Spirit — Chris Richard
• Community Involvement — Joe Bateman
• “Good Guy” — Charlie Montoyo

Congratulations to all. Well-deserved.

Chris Richard’s recent fine play was noticed by the International League and he was named Player of the Week for the final week of the season. In that regard, Chris’ final batting average of .300 on the year helps explain why he left the game a bit early last night. He was at exactly .300. Why take a chance? (Even better, from a stat geek's perspective, was his wOBA of .396 and bRAA of 24.6, the best on the team).

Elliot Johnson, by the way, will be playing ball for the Mazatlan Venados this winter. For those who would like to keep track, Nicole Johnson will be blogging here, and the Venados website is here. Note that Elliot’s signing was a headline event (wearing a Rays hat instead of a Bulls hat, darn it). If it works like last year, the Venados offer streaming video of the games on their website, but your Spanish had better be a whole lot better than mine to follow what’s going on. In that regard, Google Translate rendered the headline on the Elliot Johnson press release as “Elliot Johnson Dress Deer.”

And last, but certainly not least, thanks to RaysIndex we noticed that Baseball America has named Jeremy Hellickson as Minor League Player of the Year (note, not pitcher of the year, player of the year). The Baseball America article by J.J. Cooper is terrific. Congrats to Jeremy.