Diamond Mind Baseball League - 2006 Ben McDonald Pitcher of the Year

2006 DMBL Ben McDonald Award for Pitching

Named after the first winner of the award, Ben McDonald of Arkansas, the trophy rewards the finest pitcher in the DMBL.

This year's award goes to....

Pedro Martinez, Arkansas

In one of the closest voting races in the history of the McDonald, Arkansas' Pedro Martinez squeaked out his third McDonald Award. He joins Greg Maddux in the exclusive club of three-time winners of the coveted award (though to be fair he had to share his award in 1999 with Kevin Brown. Pedro didn't lead any pitching categories in 2006, but he was in the top five for several key categories that voters love:

ERA: 3.20 (3)
Strikeouts: 194 (4)
Wins: 18 (tied for 3rd)
Batting Average: .216 (2)
On-base Percentage: .271 (2)
Runners/9 inn: 9.8 (2)
OPS: .668 (4)
WHIP: 1.06 (2)

In fact, the only two significant categories that Pedro led the league (actually tied with John Smoltz) in were Quality Starts (24) and Quality Start percentage (.727). The problem is all the other pitchers were so up and down in most categories that the voters split on their positioning on their ballots. Fifteen different pitchers split votes this season, including five different pitchers gaining a first place vote!

Pedro was drafted in the third round of the 1994 draft by the Louisiana Lightning as a relief pitcher. He spent the entire season in Triple A and was traded August 7 to Arkansas with Jeff Bagwell for Rod Beck, Robin Ventura, Brian McRae, and a first round pick. Pedro did see some limited action in the playoffs that year, but after the strike Pedro was moved into the rotation and began his pitching dominance. Pedro went 20-8 with a 3.82 ERA and 210 strikeouts in his first full year in the league. He would go on to win 20 or more four more times (1999,2000--his two McDonald years--2002, and 2005). For his career, Pedro is just shy of 200 wins (196) and should easily achieve that goal sometime in 2007.

Carolina's Roy Halladay (17-6, 3.54) came in second with 38 points. Pedro's teammate and former McDonald winner, Roger Clemens came in third in the voting and also received two first place votes, but was curiously left off two of the seven ballots. Perhaps it was his lack of wins (15) that turned voters off. Newark's John Smoltz led the league in wins with 22, but came in fourth in the voting. Philly's Doug Davis came in fourth after gaining just one vote -- but it was a first place vote!

PLAYER	TEAM	1	2	3	4	5	6	PTS
Pedro Martinez	ARK	2	2	1	0	1	0	41
Roy Halladay	CAR	1	2	2	1	0	1	38
Roger Clemens	ARK	2	1	2	0	0	0	37
John Smoltz	NWK	1	2	0	1	0	1	28
Doug Davis	PHI	1	0	0	0	0	0	10
Rich Harden	LV	0	0	0	2	1	1	9
Jon Lieber	MAR	0	0	1	0	0	1	6
Felix Hernandez	HIL	0	0	0	1	1	0	5
Jake Peavy	VAN	0	0	1	0	0	0	5
Johann Santana	PHI	0	0	0	1	1	0	5
Carlos Silva	HBK	0	0	0	1	1	0	5
Billy Wagner	VAN	0	0	0	1	1	1	3
Mariano Rivera	MAR	0	0	0	0	0	2	2
Francisco Rodriguez	PHI	0	0	0	0	1	0	2

Points are scored as follows: 10 points for a first place vote, 7 for second, 5 for third, 3 for fourth, 2 for fifth and 1 for sixth.

The all-time winners of the McDonald Award:

BEN MCDONALD AWARD WINNERS
PLAYER	YEAR	TEAM
Pedro Martinez	2006	ARK
Johan Santana	2005	PHI
Tim Hudson	2004	CAR
Curt Schilling	2003	ARK
Mark Buehrle	2002	COL
Randy Johnson	2001	NWK
Pedro Martinez	2000	ARK
Pedro Martinez and Kevin Brown	1999	ARK
Greg Maddux	1998	VAN
Greg Maddux	1997	VAN
Greg Maddux	1996	VAN
Sid Fernandez	1994	SAC-AUS
Roger Clemens	1993	AUS
Nolan Ryan	1992	AUS
Ben McDonald	1991	ARK