Bucs, Mo up for GIBBY top Storyline honors

From start to finish, we saw just about everything in baseball this year. There were great plays, thrilling pennant races and outstanding individual and team performances. But what will stand out in our memory are the prominent storylines that played out over the course of a memorable season.

There are seven fantastic nominees for this year's GIBBY award for Storyline of the Year, which features the season's most compelling angles. From rookie entrances to a veteran's departure and some fantastic postseason races, it was truly a year to remember.

Fans can vote through Sunday for the Storyline of the Year for 2013. In the past five years, fans have cast more than 50 million votes across the various GIBBY categories, none of which was restricted to individual league affiliation.

There's only a short time left to vote, so be sure to do so.

Winners will be presented with their GIBBY trophies at the MLB.com Greatness in Baseball Yearly Awards extravaganza during the Winter Meetings next month in Orlando, Fla.

One of the fantastic things about each baseball season is we never know which players are going to have a huge impact on the game.

This year there were first-year phenoms like Michael Wacha, Yasiel Puig and Jose Fernandez who made a quick splash. On the other hand, seasoned veteran and Yankees icon Mariano Rivera is another nominee thanks to the season-long goodbye that was his 2013 campaign.

Postseason baseball also welcomed back the Pirates, who returned to the playoffs after a losing skid of 20 seasons. The Bucs were joined there by a few dramatic Wild Card winners: the Dodgers, who became just the fourth team in history to finish in first after sitting in last on July 1 or later, and the Red Sox, who inspired the city of Boston after tragedy at the Boston Marathon and turned in a worst-to-first performance after finishing in the American League East basement in 2012.

A number of Major League Baseball's A-listers will take home 2013 GIBBY trophies -- the ultimate honors of the industry's awards season -- based on votes by media, front-office personnel, MLB alumni, fans at MLB.com and the Society for American Baseball Research.

This year's GIBBY Awards feature nominees in 22 categories. Individual honors will go to the MLB MVP, in addition to the year's best starting pitcher, hitter, closer, setup man, rookie, breakout hitter, breakout pitcher, comeback player, defensive player, manager, executive and postseason performer.

GIBBY trophies also will be awarded for the year's top play, storyline, hitting performance, pitching performance, oddity, walk-off, Cut4 topic, regular-season moment and postseason moment, from MLB.com's Must C highlight reels.