The BBWAA announced the top three finishers for the major awards on Monday night, with the actual winners announced next week. Now, the BBWAA knows who won, or at least, the agency that counts the votes knows who won. It’s a nice marketing strategy to keep baseball in the news for two weeks in early November rather than just one. All week we will hear the Freddie Freeman versus Mookie Betts arguments, for example, followed by four days of interviews and reveals next week.

What might be more fun is to have some kind of second vote. Let the fans rank these three players, not on their overall performance, but on slices of skills. Take the three top pitchers, and break them out into categories like power pitching, controlling the running game, ground ball propensity, etc. This could drive people into the depths of StatCast and FanGraphs, making fans look beyond a few big numbers. Then, when the reveal happens, compare the actual vote to this fan vote breakdown.