MLB Awards

Any thoughts on any of the awards given out already?

Obviously as a Giants fan I'm ecstatic Lincecum won his second Cy Young Award, back to back. But I'm curious what other people think? Should he have won? I truly believe any of the top three guys, Lincecum, Carpenter and Wainright, deserved to win and I would have had no problem with any of them receiving the award.

I also find it interesting that the voting seems to have changed the last two years. With Zack Greinke winning the AL award with a record of 16-8 and Lincecum winning with a record of 15-7 it tells me that voters are finally looking at more than just the win total. I'm very happy about that! I've always been bothered by guys with 19-20+ wins automatically winning regardless of the team they play for and their other more important stats.

I agree with you, Blibble, that there is no wrong choice among the three. While Lincecum had fewer wins than Carpenter and Wainright, he pitched more innings and recorded far more strikeouts. He was the most dominating pitcher of the year, and I truly believe he is the best pitcher in baseball. If he had some offensive support, he'd have won 20.

What was funny about the voting is that Wainright got more first place votes than the other two, but finished third in overall voting. This tells me that quite a few voters looked heavily at win total. Those that looked at other criteriaput him third or lower. Because of today's specialization of pitchers, which discourages complete games and calls 6 innings a quality start, starters get fewer decisions than their counterparts of 25-30 years ago, and therefore win and loss totals are down.

Greinke also earned the AL award. He was clearly the best pitcher in the AL.

I was disappointed that Happ didn't win rookie of the year in the NL. He joined the starting rotation for the Phillies a month after the season started and throughout most of the summer was their most consistent starting pitcher, but the hitter from Florida had an incredible second half, and was as deserving.

I agreed with Tracy as manager of the year. Early in the year I said he was the most underrated manager in the game. He managed our local AA team in the early 90s to the best record of any team AA through majors. I thought Gardenhire should have won the award in the AL.

As far as MVP, Pujols and Mauer deserve the awards. Nobody else is close.