2013 BBS Awards: Tom Brady Award for Biggest Surprise Out of Nowhere

This award goes to the athlete who performed in an outstanding fashion in 2013, even though we barely knew who he was, or at least had no idea he could play so well. Previous winners include Brad Marchand, Danny Woodhead, and Hideki Okajima.

The winner this year is Koji Uehara of the Boston Red Sox.

Honorable mention to Torey Krug of the Bruins, Shane Vereen of the Patriots, Mike Napoli, Shane Victorino, and John Lackey.

Uehara came out of nowhere. The Red Sox were in need of a closer, and he took the job. And he did so with style. In 74.1 innings he struck out 101 batters. He only walked 9. He converted 21 saves, 13 holds, and only blew 3 saves. His WHIP was 0.57. He finished 7th in Cy Young voting and won the ALCS MVP.

My favorite stat is that 74% of his pitches were strikes. He faced 265 batters, and only threw 274 balls, or about 1 ball per plate appearance, and only 3.7 balls per inning pitched. He just threw strikes.

Strikes and high fives.