DIBS awards for 2006

The Detroit Independent Baseball Scribes, better known as DIBS, named their various Tiger players of the year today.

The winners for 2006:

Player of the Year - Carlos Guillen
Pitcher of the Year - Kenny Rogers
Breakout Player of the Year - Justin Verlander
Postseason Performer - Kenny Rogers

Head over to Tigers Central for the voting breakdown and full DIBS press release.

I read Ian's reasoning for the picks on his DIBS ballot. As I'm in favor of full disclosure, I'll show you how I voted.

Player of the year:
1. Carlos Guillen
2. Kenny Rogers
3. Justin Verlander

MVP awards, fr the most part, go to position players, and Guillen was the Tigers best everyday player. You could easily make a case for Kenny Rogers, and if he had won, I would have had no problem with it. Not that Guillen doesn't deserve the Player of the Year honor. Save for his occasional fielding miscues, Guillen did everything well. It's a shame that Guillen doesn't get the national acclaim he richly deserves. Guillen is just as much the player, if not better than, the media darling that is Derek Jeter. Hopefully the Tigers long playoff run will help to correct that slight, and Guillen will get credit as one of the elite shortstops in MLB.

Pitcher of the year:
1. Kenny Rogers
2. Justin Verlander
3. Todd Jones

As good as Verlander was in his rookie season, and he was good to great for 2/3 of the season, The Gambler was the Tigers best, and most consistent, pitcher overall. He became the stopper that they've lacked since Jack Morris fled to Minnesota. It was a year of redemption for Rogers, he deserved to win this award, in my mind, going away. As much as I ripped on Todd Jones during the regular season, I had to give Todd Jones credit for his 37 saves, despite his knack for causing Tiger fans' hair to gray prematurely.

Breakout player of the year:
1. Justin Verlander
2. Curtis Granderson
3. Joel Zumaya

Verlander won AL Rookie of the Year, was the best pitcher in baseball for a long stretch, and exceeded everyone's already high expectations. When Granderson played well, the Tigers won. When he didn't, neither did the Tigers. In his first full season, Granderson showed that he'll be one of the Tigers' core players for a very long time. Zumaya was unhittable at times, and exciting all the time. But as a middle relief guy, important as his contributions were, I just couldn't bring myself to put him higher on my ballot.

Postseason performer:
1. Kenny Rogers
2. Sean Casey
3. Placido Polanco

To me, this was the no-brainer of the lot. Pine tar or not, Rogers was the star of the postseason. He had a playoff for the ages. Whenever I think of The Gambler's dominating performance against the Yankees in the ALDS, I still smile. The Mayor was the only position player to show up in the World Series, despite being injured. A .529 batting average is definitely considered "Showing up." I wasn't going to hold Polanco's unfortunate World Series performance against him, as he was a constant on-base presence in the first 2 playoff rounds, winning the ALCS MVP in the process. So I couldn't leave him off my ballot, but I had to drop him to 3rd. Plus the GF wouldn't be happy if I had not given Polonco his props, as her "Polly" is by far her favorite ballplayer...