Todd Frazier was named Major League Baseball Players Association Players Choice Award as the National League’s outstanding rookie Monday evening. All ballots for this award were submitted by the players.
“It means a lot. It’s the ultimate award, I think, because the players vote,” Frazier said. “They understand the game. They understand how hard it is to play, the grind. It’s very meaningful to me and I’m happy to receive it.”
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“Wade Miley was steady all year. He did his thing,” Frazier said. “Harper came on strong at the end. I came on in the middle when we had a couple of guys go down.
“Just understanding the presence that Joey Votto has, and Scott Rolen, to come in and play the game, not to their capabilities but to mine, it was a big value. Filling those kinds of shoes was pretty hard. But I understood at the same time that you can’t do the things those guys can do. Do what you can do and trust yourself. That’s the bottom line. I trusted what I could do.”
Brandon Phillips won the newly minted Wilson Defensive Player of the Year Awards.
The prize from the sporting goods company names the best defensive player on each Major League club, as well as naming the best defensive player in each league and the best defensive team in baseball.
The winners were determined by the statistical analysis of MLB Network’s “shredder system” along with input from the Network’s analysts.
Phillips was named the best defensive player on the Reds squad while Michael Bourn was named the best defensive player in the National League. (Our fantasy player, Mike Trout, won best AL defensive player.)