Rookie of the Year

Angel Berroa and Dontrelle Willis won the A.L. and N.L. Rookie of the Year Awards

I can't argue much with Berroa, though I think if I'd voted, since there were no rules against players in foreign major leagues winning, I'd still have voted for Hideki Matsui. I think the Berroa vote reflects a bit of irritation at baseball writers at having those other leagues coming into to play, and being considered rookies when they've been playing several years overseas.

I'm kind of split on Dontrelle Willis thing.

I think I said at the end of the season that I'd have voted for Willis. I'm going on the standard that the Rookie of the Year is kind of like the Most Valuable Player award, only for first year players. I thought then (and still think) that he was very much the spark for that Marlins team that broke out of its doldrums and went on to win it all. And without Willis to rally around early on in their season, after Jack McKeon took over, I'm not sure the Marlins would have done as well as they did.

Without Webb, the D'Backs wouldn't have changed position much. And without Posednik? How much worse could the Brewers be...honestly?

I see the other side, though. Dontrelle faltered so much down the stretch that when it came time to set the rotation for the playoffs, Willis was a little bit the forgotten son behind Penny, Beckett and Mark "Losing Pitcher" Redman. And by the World Series, Willis was pitching out of the bulldpen.

And I see that both Scott Posednik and Brandon Webb, statistically, were better than Willis over the long haul.

And I'll say very much that the stats guy in me notices these things very much. And it's a question day-to-day as to which baseball fan....the maudlin' guy who wants feel-good ending...or the numbers guy, who actually gives a damn about things like win-shares and OBP.

Here's where I'm leaning right now:

Since baseball's publicity machine does a pretty a piss poor job of promoting itself in any positive way, anything that makes the game look a little better, I'll buy.

Dontrelle Willis is a young kid who's been shown that he likes to play. He actually has fun out there on the baseball field.

And in a time where we have superstars like Barry Bonds in court testifying in a steroid case, Sammy Sosa corking his bat, Manny Ramirez acting like a stupid, lazy millionaire, and any number of players from Roberto Alomar or Rafael Palmiero, who aren't exactly dogging it, but are almost definitely primarily out there cashing a check, showing no apparent interest in either playing hard or even actually winning a World Championship....maybe it's not necessarily a bad thing that the popular kid (who plays hard and is popular for coming virtually from nowhere and, for a time this season, being one of the the most dominant pitchers in the N.L.) gets the award and the adulation.

Especially in this time of free agent signings, when a lot of has-beens and never-will-be's will be signed to contracts to get paid more money than the overwhelming majority of baseball fans will ever see in their lives. If we can balance out the resentment of that fact just a little by putting a kid who came from the minors to dominate his first couple of months in the majors, I think it's probably not a bad thing.

Baseball needed and still needs a LOT of players who do stuff like that.

If I can offer a final thought and a prediction:

This Rookie of the Year award means little in the long run. I mean, really...how many teams has Todd Hollandworth played with now?

I'm sure we'll be hearing Brandon Webb's name a lot more over the coming seasons than we will Dontrelle Willis'. I'm kind of thinking Willis has got a couple of tells in his delivery that a lot of people have picked up, nowadays, which is why he wasn't as impressive down the stretch, and put into the bullpen in the postseason. And unless he works a few of those out, he's gonna be toast before long.

Brandon Webb's got a nasty-ass sinker that you know is coming, but you still can't hit.

In the end, I think Willis is a good enough choice.

However....if Albert PooHoles wins the MVP over Barry "I'm an asshole, but without me, the Giants were the Padres" Bonds, we need to elect completely new Baseball Writers to represent us each year.