Splitting his professional career with Toronto and St. Louis, Carl Gunnarson was a traditional stay-at-home Defenseman who rarely drew penalties.  Gunnarson had three seasons where he received Lady Byng votes, and he only had 179 Penalty Minutes over 629 Games.

A member of the 2019 Stanley Cup Championship Team with the Blues, Gunnarson scored 138 Points with a Plus/Minus of 41 over his career. Internationally, Gunnarson won three World Hockey Championship Medals, two Bronze and one Silver for Sweden.                              

The process continues.

We here are Notinhalloffame.com have plans to create our own set of post-season awards, which we will look back and retroactively present from 1901 on.  That will take a while, but it has never stopped us before!

Our awards are not be league specific.

Now it is time for our 2021 positional awards.

We will be awarding a positional player of the year, but not only that, offer up the runner-up and second runner-up, meaning that we will have First, Second and Third All-MLB players.

Let’s work our way around the diamond and award the best of the best in Baseball!

*Please note that to qualify, a player must appear in that position at least 50% of the time.

Catcher of the Year (First Team All-MLB):  Salvador Perez, Kansas City Royals.  5.3 bWAR, 3.4 fWAR, 169 H, 48 HR, 88 R, 121 RBI, 0 SB, .273/.316/.544/.859.

Advanced metrics show that Perez is declining defensively, but this was the best offensive output of his career.  While we were all watching Shohei Ohtani and Vladimir Guerrero battle for the American League Home Run Title, it was Perez who snuck past Ohtani to tie Guerrero for the win, also while setting a new Home Run record for Catchers with 48 (though only 33 were accumulated as a Catcher).  Nevertheless, Perez earns this honor, while also again being the unquestioned Royals MVP. 

Catcher: Second Team All-MLB:  Buster Posey, San Francisco Giants.  3.5 bWAR, 4.9 fWAR, 120 H, 18 HR, 68 R, 56 RBI, 0 SB, .304/.390/.499/.889.

Posey could have challenged Perez for First Team, but he missed a lot of Games, only appearing in 113 this year.  He went to his eighth All-Star Game this year, and had his first .300 Season since 2017.

Catcher: Third Team All-MLB:  J.T. Realmuto, Philadelphia Phillies.  3.4 bWAR, 4.4 fWAR, 125 H, 17 HR, 64 R, 73 RBI, 13 SB, .263/.343/.449/.782.

Realmuto made his third All-Star Game this year and second with Philadelphia.   

Ron Hainsey could be classified as a journeyman Defenseman, yet if that is the only way you think of Hainsey it is an incomplete assessment.

The American played collegiately at Massachusetts Lowell and was a First Rounder for Montreal in 2000.  He would later have runs with Columbus and Atlanta/Winnipeg, where between the two teams he had a three-year run of 30-plus Point seasons (2006-07 to 2008-09).  Hainsey then joined Carolina, and during his fourth season, he was traded to Pittsburgh at the trade deadline, where he helped the Penguins win the 2017 Stanley Cup.

He closed out his career with Toronto and Ottawa, finishing with 17 seasons, 1,132 Games and 311 Points, a nice career by every standard.

Johnny Boychuk was a stay-at-home Defenseman through his career who split his career with Boston and the New York Islanders (save for four Games in Colorado).

Boychuk was not known for his scoring, but he did have four years where he cracked 20 Points, and he won a Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2011.  He overall scored 206 Points with a Plus/Minus of +123.