Leake should have won.
I just don't have the energy to get worked up over hitting awards for pitchers.
Congrats to Jay Bruce.
sorry we're boring
I've long since come to accepting that Jay Bruce will be a player who you can only judge by the full picture at season's end. Such an enigma at times during the season. And yet, he now is the only player in MLB history to hit 20 home runs in his rookie season and increase that total in each subsequent season. He and Frank Robinson are the only Reds to hit 20 or more home runs in their first five seasons. And he leads all ML players 25 or younger in career home runs (134, I think). If he ever smooths out the peaks and valleys, he'll only be better (no duh, right?). Congrats, Jay.
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Does anyone think that Jay should've won this award? We have seen tons of handwringing over the potential AL vote not taking more modern metrics into account yet no one comments that Jay was likely voted in because of his edge over others in stats such as HR and RBI?
Call me a homer in this but did Jay really have a better year at the plate than Holliday or Beltran? As I understand, the SS are given to outfielders and isn't limited to RF, LF, and CF. I'm not doubting that Jay had a great year at the plate. His HR's and RBI's would suggest so. However when stacked against Matt Holliday, for example, Holliday blows him away in practically every offensive category except HR's and SLG%.
Also, please correct me if I'm wrong in saying that they award it to just 3 OFer's and isn't limited by position.
I just checked Fangraphs and Holliday was almost 3 WAR better than Bruce was this year. Fielding doesn't play into it because both were bad this year.
"No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference." ~Tommy Lasorda
Isn't it almost kind of pointless to argue who gets the SS at the pitcher position?
That's the thing. I don't see how anything that can come down to a swing of one plate appearance can possibly be called a "solid advantage" or "decent margin" in anything. If you prefer Strasburg, that's fine...it's certainly debatable. But there's no possible way you can make heads from tails in that sample statistically.
"No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference." ~Tommy Lasorda
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