Up for Discussion: Do Awards Change How We Perceive Players for Fantasy?

With the end of the World Series comes not only the start of the Hot Stove, but also the offseason gets moving with the announcement of the season's award winners. This year kicked off with ESPN2's broadcast of the Gold Glove award winners, and while I wasn't able to watch the performance, Twitter kept me very well acquainted with who won, along with who they thought was snubbed in the process. Baseball Nation's Rob Neyer has a brief break down of the deserving and not-so-deserving winners.

As with nearly every award, there are invariably going to be deserving players that end up on the wrong side of the award for any number of reasons. Every year it seems that the Gold Gloves are one of the awards that really get people heated, and at least a part of that comes from the fact that defense can be a very nebulous thing to measure.

This year was of course no exception, as the general outrage on Twitter seemed to stem from players like Mike Trout and Brendan Ryan not winning the awards at their position. Looking forward, we undoubtedly will have similar levels of consternation again in just over two weeks when the BBWAA announces their choices for the MVP awards.

Now, in a majority of fantasy leagues, defense has no bearing other than to determine where we can put a player in our lineup. But does how we view a particular player for fantasy change because of the awards they do or do not win? Does the award that they do or do not win have more impact if it is a larger award (like the MVP or Cy Young), as opposed to a lesser one (like the Gold Gloves)? Does how we rank a pitcher change because they won the Cy Young in the previous year, or does it not matter at all?

Let's hear your thoughts in the comments! Do the awards have any impact on how you view a player for your fantasy league, and if so, what does that impact look like?