Steal of the Year

During the off-season, one of the traditions of the CFCL is to recognize various accomplishments from the recent season.  We send out an Awards Ballot so the owners can vote for MVP, Cy Young, GM of the Year, etc. 

Some awards have been added to the ballot over time and others have been around since the start of the league back in 1984.

One award that's been around since the beginning is the Steal of the Year.  The CFCL's draft is an auction draft.  So every year the owners are charged with trying to identify which players they want to add to their team and then (more importantly) figuring out how much they are willing to spend on the players.  Most players, when you head into the draft, you can accurately guess the range of cost they will fall in to.  Walking in to the draft, for example, you could say "Clayton Kershaw is available and he's probably going to go for .35-.45."  Most of the time you'd be right.  Sometimes there are surprises both high and low.

We don't really know who the great steals are until the end of the year when you can compare a players production vs. his cost.

Here is the description of our Steal of the Year Award from othe CFCL Headquarters:

Steal of the Year

Since our inaugural season of 1984, this award is given to that player whom the CFCL owners feel was the biggest bargain in the Draft that year. With so many writers publishing player values these days, it would be a simple task to just subtract each player's salary from his calculated value at the end of the season. However, this is about perceived value as much as anything, and it's a lot more fun to ponder the candidates than it would be to determine the winner with a calculator.

 

The key word there is "perceived".  We don't have any hard and fast rules for our owners to follow in voting for any of the awards.  We try to offer some parameters for consideration, but how much weight to assess to the variables is up to each owner.  For example, for SOTY, is production more important than price?  Does it matter what position the player plays?  That's all for the owners to decide and we get wide-ranging opinions in the voting.  But this is all meant to be fun and part of an end of the year celebration so we don't take things too seriously.

 

Here is a list of all the previous SOTY winners and the team that drafted them as well as their salary.  As you can see, most winners had extremely low salaries.

 

Steal Of The Year

1984		Charlie Lea		Fred's Friars		.01
1985		John Tudor		Mudville Sluggers		.08
1986		Bob Ojeda		David's Ruffins		.01
1987		Chris James		Dem Rebels		.01
1988		Randy Myers		Twin Picks		.10
1989		Mike Bielecki		David's Copperfields		.01
1990		Norm Charlton		Bald Eagles		.02
1991		Mike Morgan		Six Packs		.01
1992		Eric Karros		Six Packs		.01
1993		Mark Whiten		David's Ruffins		.01
1994		John Franco		Da Paul Meisters		.07
1995		Vinnie Castilla		David's Copperfields		.01
1996		Henry Rodriguez		FlatFeet		.04
1997		Jeff Kent		Six Packs		.09
1998		Greg Vaughn		Steve's Slackers		.09
1999		Scott Williamson		Six Packs		.04
2000		Ryan Dempster		Dem Rebels		.02
2001		Albert Pujols		DoorMatts		.03
2002		Dave Roberts		Lambchops		.01
2003		Javy Lopez		Lambchops		.06
2004		Adrian Beltre		Reservoir Dogs		.12
2005		Todd Jones		DoorMatts		.01
2006		Freddy Sanchez		Lambchops		.03
2007		Kevin Gregg		Lambchops		.02
2008		Ryan Ludwick		Mo's Red Hots		.01

2009    Matt Cain                  David's Ruffins               .10
2010     Angel Pagan             Twin Killers                    .01
2011     Lance Berkman        David's Ruffins               .14
2012     Adam LaRoche        Dem Rebels                     .05