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Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Baseball awards rant
And they haven't even gotten to the MVP yet. Sheesh.

First, let me say that I don't really have a problem with Roy Halladay winning the Cy Young. I think you can make a rational case for him, for Tim Hudson, and for Pedro Martinez. Personally, I'd put them Hudson-Martinez-Halladay, but they're realy all pretty close. So what's Esteban Loiaza doing in second place in the voting? Who are the 14 idiots who don't think Pedro Martinez was one of the top 3 pitchers in the league last year? And the 21 who don't think Hudson was? What are these people smoking?

It's OK, just let me catch my breath.

All right, AL Rookie of the Year. Let's get the idiots out of the way first: The two guys who left Matsui off their ballots, and the two guys who left Berroa off their ballots. I think Berroa was the right choice, but MLB really needs to fix two things:

  1. Clarify, once and for all, whether players from Japanese leagues are "rookies". Either make a statement that the Japanese leagues are considered comparable to MLB and therefore they're not rookies, or confirm that anyone playing their first year in MLB is a rookie regardless of whether they've played in a comparable league or not. The Japanese, in case you don't know, are very insulted by the notion that their players can come here and excel in MLB but still be considered "rookies" as though they'd never played at an MLB level before.
  2. Fix the writers. Writers who don't follow the rules should lose their votes. Matsui, by the rules, was a rookie this year. Anybody who publicly goes against the rules (like the people, every year it seems, who won't vote for a pitcher for MVP) should lose their votes. It's that simple.
Warning: major rant to come when Alex Rodriguez does not win the AL MVP.
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