Important Dates for the Diamondbacks and Major League Baseball
By Noah Dougherty
With the Major League Baseball awards set to come out over the next few days, I figured now was a good time to lay out some important upcoming dates for the game and in some cases, dates that are specifically important to the Diamondbacks.
The D’backs finished the 2013 season as the number one fielding squad in the National League tied with the Cardinals and the Reds. However, the Snakes tallied a considerable amount of additional innings due to their record number of extra inning battles making a strong argument that the D’backs have an edge here. The fact that the club had three nominees for a Gold Glove award and both Gerardo Parra and Paul Goldschmidt brought home the hardware should come as no surprise. Patrick Corbin was the third D’back to be nominated for a Gold Glove.
Beyond that, Goldschmidt was also honored with the Hank Aaron award, an award that recognizes the top offensive player in each league during the regular season. Now, as officially announced yesterday, Goldie will battle Yadier Molina and Andrew McCutchen for the N.L. MVP award- the highest individual honor for a position player in the game.
Below are a list of the awards and their announcement dates:
November 6: Silver Slugger Awards (announced last night) –Paul Goldschmidt brought home the award, Martin Prado had been nominated.
November 11: Rookie of Year Awards
A.L.: Wil Myers, Chris Archer, Jose Iglesias
N.L.: Jose Fernandez, Shelby Miller, Yasiel Puig
November 12: Manager of Year Awards
A.L.: John Farrell, Terry Francona, Bob Melvin
N.L.: Fredi Gonzalez, Clint Hurdle, Don Mattingly
November 13: Cy Young Awards
A.L.: Yu Darvish, Hisashi Iwakuma, Max Scherzer
N.L.: Clayton Kershaw, Jose Fernandez, Adam Wainwright
November 14: Most Valuable Player Awards
A.L.: Miguel Cabrera, Chris Davis, Mike Trout
N.L.: Paul Goldschmidt, Andrew McCutchen, Yadier Molina
All award ceremonies to be aired on MLB Network starting at 6 p.m. EST.
Note: All voting done by the BBWAA during final weekend of regular season so postseason play has no effect on results.
Other important dates that overlap the award ceremonies and continue on after are included below:
November 10: Outright waivers secured on or after September 1st expire at 5 p.m. ET
November 11: Last date for players to accept qualifying offer from former club
New waiver period begins
Sporting News Executive of the Year Award announced
November 11-13: GM/Owners meetings in Orlando, FL
November 18: Last date to ask outright waivers on an injured player, if permissible
November 20: Last date to outright an injured player to the Minor Leagues, if permissible
Reserve lists for all Major and Minor League levels filed
December 2: Tender Deadline – As per Barry Bloom with MLB.com, this means that a player “who isn’t offered a contract by midnight Friday then goes into the free-agent pool. If he is tendered, he’s locked into the 2014 season at a figure to be determined later, either in arbitration or negotiations. According to the Basic Agreement, when teams tender contracts, they can’t attempt to cut any more than 20 percent of what a player made last season in salary and performance bonuses or 30 percent of those figures during the past two seasons.”
December 5: Last date to request outright waivers to assign player prior to Rule 5 Draft
December 9: Last date to outright a player prior to Rule 5 Draft
December 9-12: Winter Meetings
GIBBY (Greatness in Baseball Yearly) Awards
December 12: Rule 5 Draft – Here is a piece on understanding the Rule 5 Draft from 2012.
March 22-23, 2014: Opening Day in Australia – Diamondbacks vs. Dodgers
As we all know by now, having Kevin Towers as our general manager can make a normally quiet off season anything but that. Keep a close eye on Venom Strikes for all breaking news in the coming weeks as the Owners meetings in November and December could very well shake up the organization heading into the 2014 season.
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