Monday, November 13, 2006

MLB Awards Season: Rookies
Hanley Ramirez, Justin Verlander
Up Next: NL Cy Young

It's MLB Awards season, and the Rookie vote is in: Hanley Ramirez over Ryan Zimmerman, Dan Uggla and Josh Johnson in the NL, and Justin Verlander over Jon Papelbon and Francisco Liriano in the AL.

In the NL, I suppose that Hanley is as good of a choice as any, though I had him 4th, behind Uggla, Johnson and Zimmerman, in that order. As long as the Marlins' many stellar rookies were represented by the winner and the final order, I'm satisfied. Someone will surely know: Has any team ever had such domination in a single season's Rookie of the Year balloting?

As for the AL, I'm all for Verlander; he was the only one of the Big Three to survive the season. But you gotta be smoking some serious New England hype crack to vote Papelbon over Liriano. If you factor out time lost to injuries, Liriano was the best pitcher in the AL. (And, seeing how he's out for '07 and who knows how much longer, the least they could do is give him the freaking runner-up spot.) Papelbon? Yeah, we'll see how he measures up when he converts to a starter next season; I'll bet his Red Sox Nation slurpers that his stats next season -- full or injury-shortened -- don't come close to Liriano's.

Coming tomorrow: NL Cy, which is by far the most wide-open of the awards to be given out. So I put it to you in the Comments section: Who gets your vote for NL Cy? (And what did you think of the Rookie voting?)

P.S.: The Mets and Cards will meet in the '07 season opener. What a perfect way for Cards fans to re-live their 2006 playoffs glory -- and for the Mets to be reminded of what they left on the table when Carlos Beltran struck out looking with the bases loaded to end the series.

14 comments:

Big D said...

NL Cy - Chris Carpenter, hands down.

Brandon Webb second, and after that, it just doesn't matter.

Kevin said...

Francisco Liriano: 98.2 IP, 11-3, 1.92 ERA, 112 SO
Jered Weaver: 123 IP, 11-2, 2.56 ERA, 105 SO

Yet Liriano will probably come in second, while Weaver has recieved no discussion whatsoever.

Probably due to what I call the Dontrelle Willis Theory - if a player (esp. a pitcher or a rookie) has a great September, it will go virtually unnoticed b/c all members of the media pick their ROY/Cy Young favorites in August. I'm not saying Weaver should win or be ahead of Liriano, but he should at least get some consideration...

(The Dontrelle Willis Theory explained: http://btwnlines.blogspot.com/2006/09/dontrelle-willis-corollary.html)

Christian Thoma said...

Who the heck cares about baseball when JUDGEMENT DAY I is 4 days, 23 hours, and 27 minutes away?!?

Brien said...

Who the heck cares about baseball when JUDGEMENT DAY I is 4 days, 23 hours, and 27 minutes away?!?

Wow ... I didn't know the annual Toledo-Bowling Green game meant so much to folks this year ...

Brien "You'd think OSU-UM was the last football game ever to be played in history ..."

Christian Thoma said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
TBender said...

NL CY - Hoffman? Carp? Oswalt? Webb?

Can we make all four share since I don't think any of them deserve a full award?


Is Beltran still standing at homeplate at Shea?

Christian Thoma said...

Reposted due to egregious grammar errors

Actually, I'm definitely more interested in Toledo-Bowling Green than Baseball Awards season. Baseball goes on too long as it is, and the awards postseason doesn't help.

It was fun debating these while the season was still going, but no one's going to care--let alone remember--about 'em five weeks from now.

Big D said...

How about the Boston Globe reporting that the Red Sox may have bid over $50M for the rights to Matsusaka?

Even Gammons only has the number at $42M.

TJ said...

NL Cy - I have no idea. Are we really just now getting to the MLB awards. Didn't the season end like 6 months ago? Sure feels like it. Since I can't seem to remember anything about the season at this point... Zambrano? I don't know.

MoonHopper said...

They really shouldn't wait so long to announce the awards. And why spread the announcements out? Lots of casual to moderately interested fans just don't care by this time.

I for one stopped caring about baseball while the Cards were still dogpiling on the field.

Why can't baseball go for a big "Awards Show", televised, black tie, guest presenters...? Might make some money. Heck, NASCAR does it.

Unknown said...

AL ROY: Verlander
NL ROY: Hanley
AL CY: Santana
NL CY: Webb
AL MVP: Morneau
NL MVP: Howard
AL MOY: Leyland
NL MOY: Jack Mac

if jeter wins mvp im not sure what i'll do

Travis said...

that 50 million figure comes from Orestes Destrade. The Globe is only reporting numbers there hearing.

as for Oswalt... sure he has a slight advantage in ERA but theres other areas to look at since they have the same record and near identical ERAs.

WHIP: Oswalt 1.17 Carpenter 1.07
CG: Oswalt 2 Carpenter 5
SHO: Oswalt 0 Carpenter 3
K: Oswalt 166 Carpenter 194

Carpenter pitched 1 more inning then Oswalt so the K difference cant be blamed on a larger innings workload.

Travis said...

NL MOY has to be Joe Girardi

marcomarco said...

Speaking of slurpers, you've got some serious Wood over Liriano. (pun intended)

Pap's stats might not measure up against Liri's as a starter, but at least he's not the 2nd coming of Mark Prior.

See you in '08, when Dan-o will be ready to polish your knob again.

Side note, I think it's fantastic that Hanley got ROY. He would've been in Pawtucket for another year in Boston, and deserved the chance to shine. He'll probably be another Bagwell for WEEI to whine about, but I'm genuinely happy for him.