The Envelope Please…

The 2002 Primey Results.

The Baseball Primer 2002 Primey Award votes have all been tabulated, and the winners have been selected.  In all, 481 ballots were counted.  Thanks to everyone who cast one.

The Primeys started as a way to recognize the funniest posts on Baseball Primer, but were expanded to also recognize all of the best baseball work on the Internet, as determined by the people who read it.  Some sites, such as Baseball Primer and Baseball-Reference were deemed ineligible.  Other popular sites were never nominated.  This need not happen again; Primey nominations are currently being accepted at primey@baseballprimer.com for the coming year.  But by and large, the response was fantastic.

After all of the nominations were received, four to five finalists were selected in each category.  These were voted on to determine the Primey Award winners.  The majority of nominees did not make it to the finalist stage, so even those that came in fifth in the voting had to be good enough to be both nominated and selected as a finalist.  They’re all worth checking out or they wouldn’t be here.

So, category by category, here are your 2002 Primey Award winners:

1. Best Humorous Post

1.   38.0%    TOLAXOR's World Series Predictions
2.   18.7%    John K's Tomas Perez Anagrams 
2.   18.7%    John Brattain sympathizes with Craig's reproductive troubles
4.   12.4%    Mark McKinniss on Giambi-Mabry
5.   12.1%    Gideon interprets the pronunciations of "ough"

TOLAXOR, as expected, took the Primey Award in this category.  His World Series predictions bordered on the epic.  The rest of the vote was fairly split.

2. Best Serious Post

1.   36.8%    Walt Davis on DIPS
2.   30.5%    Walt Davis on the salary cap
3.   22.4%    David Jones on groupthink
4.    6.7%    Yupi's Words in Declaration of Independence

Walt Davis was the big winner here.  He was responsible for two of the four finalists, and those two combined for about two-thirds of the total vote.  David Jones also had a strong showing.

3. Best Baseball Thread

1.   47.4%    Giambi-Mabry Trade
2.   22.4%    Royals Slogans
3.   18.0%    Memorable Moments
4.    6.7%    Hall of Fame 2
5.    5.5%    Rangers Chemistry

More recent threads had stronger showings here, with the infamous Giambi-Mabry thread coming out on top.

4. Best Non-Baseball Thread

1.   30.9%    Jung Bong
2.   21.1%    Primmer v. Prymer
3.   18.0%    Translations
4.   15.4%    Ring Dings 
5.   14.6%    Name is…

This was one of the more evenly-divided categories.  For a while, it was a close race between Primmer v. Prymer and Jung Bong, but in the end, Bong won out.

5. Best Poetry

1.   39.5%    Dzop's Quinn at the Bat
2.   19.7%    Score Bard on the A's Streak
3.   17.2%    Score Bard on the Floyd trade
4.   15.9%    Score Bard on the year ahead
5.    7.8%    Kamatoa on the Rockies

Many ballots expressed reservations about voting against the Score Bard in a category where the award might as well be named after him.  But Dzop’s Quinn at the Bat came out on top nonetheless.  However, more than half the votes did go to the Score Bard; they were just split among his three poems.

6. Most Informative Poster

1.   45.9%    Walt Davis
2.   31.9%    Steve Treder
3.   11.1%    Beer Guy
4.    7.6%    Bruce Markusen
5.    3.5%    Dick Thompson

Walt Davis was once again the big winner, though Steve Treder also had a strong showing.  Clearly, a consistent presence was important to the voters—failing that, the dispensation of alcohol.

7. Best Internet Baseball Site

1.   28.0%    Baseball Almanac
2.   24.2%    BaseballLibrary.com
3.   22.9%    Waymoresports.com
4.   13.5%    Bigleaguers.com
5.   11.5%    The Baseball Page

This was the most divided category.  Baseball Almanac took the award over close competition from BaseballLibrary.com and Waymoresports.com, which was boosted by having minor league numbers for current major leaguers.  Bigleaguers.com was likely hurt by reducing the amount of data available on their site rather drastically right around the time of voting.  Hopefully they’ll bring the other data back.

8. Best Internet Baseball Writer

1.   31.2%    Rob Neyer
2.   28.1%    Doug Pappas
3.   21.3%    Joe Sheehan
4.   10.4%    Craig Calcaterra
5.    9.0%    Jim Baker

In another close category, ESPN.com’s Rob Neyer took the award after edging out Doug Pappas in a race that was in doubt during most of the voting period.

9. Best Internet Baseball Weblog

1.   50.8%    Daily Prospectus
2.   18.6%    Aaron's Baseball Blog
3.   15.9%    Futility Infielder
4.   10.1%    Big Bad Baseball
5.    4.6%    baseballjunkie.net

Baseball Prospectus’s Daily Prospectus won such a lopsided victory here that this was really a race for second place between four good blogs.  Having visited these sites during the voting, I can attest to the fact that there is a strong correlation between each weblog’s showing here and whether they advertised the voting on their site.

10. Best Baseball Article

1.   55.1%    Doug Pappas - "The Numbers" Series
2.   16.2%    Bill Simmons - "My dance with the Devil (Rays)"
3.    9.9%    Allen Barra - "My most memorable baseball moments" Series
4.    9.4%    Rob Neyer - "A Last Great Season: The Senators in 1945"
4.    9.4%    Jonah Keri - "Prospectus Q&A: Tommy John"

Another blowout, as Doug Pappas’s “The Numbers,” an eight-part series, took the award.  Only Bill Simmons was able to make any headway with a humorous look at the Devil Rays.

11. Best Baseball Research/Analysis Project

1.   45.5%    Voros McCracken - DIPS 2.0
2.   37.8%    Bill James - Win Shares
3.    7.7%    Tangtotiger - BaseRuns/Runs Created Research
4.    5.4%    Charles Saeger - Context-Adjusted Defense
5.    3.6%    Rob Wood - Win Values

This turned into a two-man race between Bill James, with Win Shares, and Voros McCracken, with DIPS.  In the end, Voros won fairly comfortably.  Unfortunately for the other three finalists, this was the proverbial “When elephants fight” category.

Once again, thanks to everyone who voted, nominated, and worked hard to get the Primeys off the ground.  Keep the nominations coming for next year—as always, you can send them to primey@baseballprimer.com to make sure they’re considered.