No love for Felix Hernandez: maybe there's a reason

Colleague Larry Stone had an interesting blog post on the fact that Felix Hernandez was blanked in Players' Choice Awards voting by his fellow ballplayers. They chose Zack Greinke, Roy Halladay and C.C. Sabathia as the three finalists for top AL pitcher. My first reaction was: this is why they don't let players pick the major awards. I mean, we've seen coaches mess up the Gold Gloves for years. For all the grief the BBWAA writers take, I still think they do the best voting job. But anyhow, back to Hernandez getting blanked. Could there be a plausible explanation, other than players merely voting on reputation rather than results? I think there could be. Let's explore. Read more...