Nov
10
Longoria, Soto take home ROY honors
ByNo surprise here, these two were clearly the head of the rookie class in their respective leagues. Here’s where it gets ridiculous though: Edinson Volquez received three second place votes despite NOT EVEN BEING ELIGIBLE FOR THE FREAKING AWARD!!! He passed the rookie limit of 50 IP last September, yet some esteemed members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America decided he was so awesome that his eligiblity should be prolonged.
These people are paid to write about baseball. What a joke.
Phil Coke was robbed. ROBBED, I TELLS YA!!!
It’s also pretty ridiculous that Joba got a lone third-place vote and Jacoby Ellsbury and his 86 OPS+ managed to finish third in the voting.
Well, Joba spent half a year as a reliever, and they’re clearly less important than starters or everyday position players.
That being said, Joba clearly should be in the bullpen, where he’s most important.
Sincerely,
The BBWAA
well played sir.
We know who the 3 are?
Remember these are the same esteemed people who didn’t vote Matsui for ROY when he was clearly a rookie by MLB rules.
They like to make it up as they go along.
Two of the writers who voted for Volquez were probably the guys who voted for Magglio for MVP in 2007. The third? Probably Joe Morgan.
Joe Morgan can’t write.
Thats it Mike apply for a job there.. You gotta do it
I guess those baseball writers don’t pay attention to details.
For all the acclaim that Longoria gets, his AVG and OBP are only league average. He does have terrific power though.
League average in his rookie season. Not to mention he plays a great 3rd base.
Got to expect the kid to improve his eye over the course of the next few years.
I’m not really arguing with the decision, but mostly because of the thin field in the AL this year.
Also, I think Joba would’ve blown him away if he had hit his innings target of 140-150 instead of 100. He was only two runs behind in VORP (admittedly not a great metric, but an easy way to directly compare pitchers and hitters), despite losing about a third of his theoretical season.
VORP does not look at defense, where Longoria was very good this year.
To look at a better offensive metric (which still ignores D) Longoria’s wOBA was .365 this year. Average is like .330. Longoria was one of the best players in the AL this year when you factor in his defense, and remember he also missed 40 games due to injury and the fact that Tampa didn’t call him up until mid-April.
Yeah Joba could have been better if he had a full season, but considering Longoria missed nearly as much time, I doubt it.
Basically, both players missed significant time and Longoria was still better in VORP without factoring in D. Longoria’s awesome; don’t underrate him.
Did Kosuke Fukudome really get a second place vote? He was dreadful relative to his contract. That might be putting it mildly considering how much hype he received coming over from Japan.
WTF did Ellsbury do to garner 7 votes second place votes? Joba only getting ONE!!!! vote for 3RD PLACE no less??!?!!!!?
All Yankees suck, and all Boston Red Sox are awesome. I don’t know how many times we need to go through this. It’s a fact.
There’s been some mention above of Matsui & Fukudome, and it’s a Rookie thread of sorts, so that’s my justification for this slightly off-topic comment.
Junichi Tazawa is ranked #24 by Jeff Passan, so I doubt that means anything officially, but I find it a little odd that this kid who’s never played pro ball on any continent is in the top 25 MLB FAs, in somebody’s opinion at least.
The question, though, is: Has there ever been a Japanese player to make his debut here? *CMW is the only Asian I know of, and I’m admittedly not super well versed*
As in a guy who signed and went straight to bigs without any time in the minors or Japanese leagues? No, I don’t think so.
CMW is the only Asian you’ve ever heard of?
Especially since CMW is Taiwanese, and not Japanese?
“There’s been some mention above of Matsui & Fukudome, and it’s a Rookie thread of sorts, so that’s my justification for this slightly off-topic comment.”
Sarah Palin, is that you?