Baseball regular season best

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it here, but 6 days a week I do a podcast called Sports Time Radio through the BlogTalkRadio.com website. It's live Monday through Friday from 5:30 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. and then we're on Sunday's from 10:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. Of course you can go into the archives and listen to whatever podcast you'd like to. During the week I'm joined by Dan the Man and then on Sunday's Mr. Fantasy co-hosts with me. Now any time they're not available for the podcast my friend Schaumburg Stu fills in for them. I ask for quite a bit of assistance from them. It's from making predictions to picking winners of games; picking All-Star teams or just trying to figure out which player is going to win what award before the season has even started. Now one of the favorite things I like to do is have them rank the best seasons players are having by just looking at their stat line.  From the American League and the National League they'll receive an e-mail with 10 hitters stats, 10 starting pitchers stats, 5 set up man's stats, 5 closer stats, 5 rookie hitters stats and 5 rookie pitchers stats. It's a lot to take in and I ask them to try and not match up the players names with the stats line, but sometimes it's pretty clear who is who. Anyway in a 10 pick set up a player gets 13 points for  1st place ranking, 11 for a 2nd place ranking, 8 points for 3rd, 7 points for 4th and so on down to 1 point for 10th. In the 5 player rankings a player receives 7 points for a 1st place ranking, 5 points for a 2nd place ranking, 3 points for a 3rd and then 2 points for a 4th and 1 point for a 5th place ranking. It took a little over a week for them to send me their let's call them ballots back, but here what they came up with. I'll put the number of total points a player received in parenthesis by his name.

The top hitter in the American League is:

Mookie Betts (33) of the Boston Red Sox. Betts hit .318 in 158 games with 31 home runs and 113 RBI's. He had 42 doubles, 5 triples and 26 stolen bases and an OPS of .892.

2nd was Jose Altuve (31) of the Houston Astros. 3rd was David Ortiz (29) of the Boston Red Sox. 4th was Miguel Cabrera (21) of the Detroit Tigers. 5th was Mike Trout (15) of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. 6th was Robinson Cano (13) of the Seattle Mariners. 7th was Dustin Pedroia (12) of the Boston Red Sox. Adrian Beltre (10) of the Texas Rangers finished 8th and Nelson Cruz (9) of the Seattle Mariners and Mark Trumbo (9) of the Baltimore Orioles tied for the final spot.

The top hitter in the National League is:

Nolan Arenado (34) of the Colorado Rockies. Arenado hit .294 in 160 games with 41 home runs and 133 RBI's. He had 35 doubles, 6 triples and 2 stolen bases and an OPS of .932

2nd was Kris Bryant (30) of the Chicago Cubs. 3rd was Daniel Murphy (27) of the Washington Nationals. 4th was Anthony Rizzo (20) of the Chicago Cubs. 5th was Charlie Blackmon (18) of the Colorado Rockies. 6th was Joey Votto (14) of the Cincinnati Reds. 7th was D.J. LeMahieu (11) of the Colorado Rockies. 8th was Freddie Freeman (10) of the Atlanta Braves. 9th was Ryan Braun (8) of the Milwaukee Brewers and in 10th was Corey Seager (7) of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The top starting pitcher in the American League is:

Rick Porcello (39) of the Boston Red Sox. Porcello was 22-4 in 33 starts with an ERA of 3.15. He had 3 complete games, 223 innings and 189 strikeouts.

2nd was J.A. Happ (33) of the Toronto Blue Jays. There was a tie for 3rd between Justin Verlander (21) of the Detroit Tigers and Aaron Sanchez (21) of the Toronto Blue Jays. There was a 3-way tie for 5th between Corey Kluber (14) of the Cleveland Indians, Masahiro Tanaka (14) of the New York Yankees and Cole Hamels (14) of the Texas Rangers. 8th place went to Chris Sale (11) of the Chicago White Sox. 9th was Danny Duffy (9) of the Kansas City Royals and 10 was Jose Quintana (4) of the Chicago White Sox.

The top starting pitcher in the National League is:

Jon Lester (37) of the Chicago Cubs. Lester was 19-5 in 32 starts with an ERA of 2.44. He had 2 complete games, 202 2/3rd innings and 197 strikeouts.

2nd was Max Schrezer (31) of the Washington Nationals. 3rd was Kyle Hendricks of the Chicago Cubs. There was a tie for 4th between teammates as San Francisco Giants Johnny Cueto (19) and Madison Bumgarner (19) took that spot. 6th was Jake Arrieta (16) of the Chicago Cubs. Noah Syndergaard (15) of the New York Mets was 7th. 8th went to Jose Fernandez (9) of the Miami Marlins. In 9th was Kenta Maeda (7) of the Los Angeles Dodgers and in 10th was Tanner Roark (6) of the Washington Nationals.

The top set up man in the American League is:

Nate jones (17 of the Chicago White Sox. Jones appeared in 71 games and recorded 28 holds. He had a 5-3 record with an ERA of 2.29 and picked up 3 saves.

2nd was Kelvin Herrera (14) of the Kansas City Royals. 3rd was Will Harris (13) of the Houston Astros.th ) )of the was Dellin Betances ( 7) of the New York Yankees and  5th was Jake Diekman (3) of the Texas Rangers.      

The top set up man in the National League is:

Addison Reed (21) of the New York Mets. Reed appeared in 80 games and recorded 40 holds. He had a 4-2 record with an ERA of 1.97 and picked up 1 save.

2nd was joe Blanton (15) of the Los Angeles Dodgers. 3rd was Kyle Barraclough ((9) of the Miami Marlins. 4th was Neftali Feliz (6) of the Pittsburgh Pirates and 5th went to Felipe Rivero (3) of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The top closer in the American League is:

Zach Britton (21) of the Baltimore Orioles. Britton was 47 out of 47 in saves chances. He was 2-1 with an ERA of 0.54 in 69 games.

2nd was Alex Colome (15) of the Tampa Bay Rays. There was a tie for 3rd between Wade Davis (7) of the Kansas City Royals and San Dyson (7) of the Texas Rangers. 5th went to Francisco Rodriguez (4) of the Detroit Tigers.

The top closer in the National league is:

Mark Melancon (17) of the Washington Nationals/Pittsburgh Pirates. Melancon was 47 for 51 in save chances. He was 2-2 with an ERA of 1.64 in 75 games.

2nd was Kenley Jansen (15) of the Los Angeles Dodgers. 3rd was Jeurys Familia (13) of the New York Mets. 4th went to A.J. Ramos (6) of the Miami Marlins and 5th went to Jeanmar Gomez (3) of the Philadelphia Phillies. 

The top rookie hitter in the American League is:

Gary Sanchez (19) of the New York Yankees. Sanchez hit .299 with 20 home runs and 42 RBI's in 53 games. He added 12 doubles a stolen base and an OPS of 1.032.

2nd was Nomar Mazara (14) of the Texas Rangers. 3rd was Tyler Naquin (11) of the Cleveland Indians. 4th was Ryon Healy (7) of the Oakland A's and 5th went to Tim Anderson (3) of the Chicago White Sox.

The top rookie hitter in the National League is:

Corey Seager (16) of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Seager hit .309 with 26 home runs and 72 RBI's in 157 games. He added 40 doubles, 5 triples and 3 stolen bases with an OPS of .877.

2nd was Trevor Story (15) of the Colorado Rockies. 3rd was Aledmys Diaz (9) of the St. Louis Cardinals. There was a tie for 4th between Brandon Drury (7) of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Trea Turner of the Washington Nationals.

The top rookie pitcher in the American League is:

Michael Fulmer (21) of the Detroit Tigers. Fulmer started 26 games and had a record of 11-7 with an ERA of 3.06. He had 1 shutout and 1 complete game and totaled 132 strikeouts in 159 innings.

2nd was Tony Barnette (12) of the Texas Rangers. 3rd was Chris Devenski (10) of the Houston Astros. 4th went to Ryan Dull (6) of the Oakland A's while 5th went to Edwin Diaz (5) of the Seattle Mariners.

The top rookie pitcher in the National League is:

Seung Hwan Oh (17) of the St. Louis Cardinals. Oh had 19 saves in 23 chances. He pitched in 76 games and had a record of 6-3 with an ERA of 1.92. Oh recorded 103 strikeouts in 79 2/3rd innings.

There was a tie for 2nd between Kenta Maeda ( 13) of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Junior Guerra (13) of the Milwaukee Brewers. 4th went to Kyle Barraclough (5) of the Miami Marlins and 5th went to Ryan Buchter (4) of the San Diego Padres.

There you go; that's how the voting shook out. Do you agree, disagree or did we miss a player. Feel free to let me know and as always thanks for taking the time to read this.