Cedric Mullins wins a Silver Slugger Award

After producing a .878 OPS and the first 30-30 season in Orioles history, center fielder Cedric Mullins tonight has become the team's first Silver Slugger Award winner since 2016.

Mullins began the night among eight finalists for three American League outfield Silver Slugger Awards and Mullins has been named a winner in the AL outfield along with Toronto's Teoscar Hernández and Aaron Judge of New York. The winners were announced in a live broadcast on MLB Network.

Mark Trumbo, as a designated hitter, was the last O's Silver Slugger in 2016. The last position players to earn that honor for Baltimore were center fielder Adam Jones, first baseman Chris Davis and shortstop J.J. Hardy in 2013.

"It means everything. It's an awesome award to win," Mullins said on winning the award during the live broadcast. "You know, it's funny, going into the year, I had my sights set on the Gold Glove. But I knew offensively I wanted to challenge myself to continue to get better every day. One day led to another, and sure enough, end of the year, put together a solid season for Silver Slugger."

In addition to earning this honor after a year where he was the first Oriole ever with 30 or more homers and stolen bases in one season, Mullins was also a unanimous winner of the Most Valuable Oriole award for this season. The 2021 campaign also saw him start in the All-Star Game, and he later was named a finalist for the Hank Aaron award (won by Vladimir Guerrero Jr.) and a finalist for the MLB Players Association's Players Choice Comeback Player of the Year Award (won by teammate Trey Mancini).

Mullins batted .291/.360/.518/ with 37 doubles, five triples, 30 homers, 30 steals, 91 runs and 59 RBIs. He was durable and dependable, playing in 159 games and taking 675 plate appearances.

Among AL outfielders with 500 or more plate appearances Mullins tied for first in steals, tied for second in doubles, was second in triples, third in OPS, tied for fifth in slugging, seventh in runs and tied for eighth in home runs.

He became the first player in the majors with a 30/30 season since Christian Yelich and Ronald Acuña Jr. in 2019 and first in the AL since Mookie Betts and José Ramírez in 2018. Mullins is the first center fielder (at least 75 percent of games played in center) with a 30-30 season since Trout in 2012.

Mullins dropped switch-hitting this year, hitting solely as a lefty batter, and the results was strong. Against left-handers in 2020, he hit .171 with an OPS of .502 batting right-handed. But batting left-handed against southpaws in 2021 he batted .277 with a .788 OPS.

The other Silver Slugger finalists in the AL at outfield were Seattle's Mitch Haniger, Boston's Hunter Renfroe, Tampa Bay's Randy Arozarena, Toronto's Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Houston's Kyle Tucker.

In existence since 1980, the Silver Slugger winners are chosen by managers and coaches who are unable to vote for players on their own teams.

Here's the list of Orioles Silver Slugger winners:
1983: Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken Jr.
1984: Murray and Ripken
1985: Ripken
1986: Ripken
1989: Ripken and Mickey Tettleton
1991: Ripken
1993: Ripken
1994: Ripken
1996: Roberto Alomar
1998: Rafael Palmeiro
2004: Miguel Tejada and Melvin Mora
2005: Tejada
2008: Aubrey Huff
2013: Davis, Hardy and Jones
2016: Trumbo
2021: Mullins

Broke out and struck silver.@cedmull30 has won his first Silver Slugger! pic.twitter.com/GuFnt6u939

-- Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) November 11, 2021