Little Big League

The Merth Beaten Worker

Part one of our baseball awards preview takes us on a tour of one of the best rookie seasons in recent baseball history. In the AL, young pitchers exploded onto the scene, and became integral parts of good teams. In the NL, florida showed us once again that a team needs neither money, fans, a ballpark, or a winning record against the phillies to be totally sweet.

AL Rookie of the Year: Jonathan Papelbon. SO good. All the attention may be in the motor city on this one, but the AL Champion's ace had some seriously bad games, didn't stirke out as many as he should have, and had an ERA (3.63) that doesnt exactly shout dominance. Here's one that does: 0.92. Papelbon pitched in a full 59 games, allowing only 7 earned runs in 68.3 IP on his way to earning 35 saves that kept boston in it. Even his second half melt down doesnt not make papelbon the single most promising rookie pitcher in baseball. Runner-up: Verlander. Honorable Mention: Liriano.

NL Rookie of the Year: Dan Uggla. This is a close one. Zimmerman had more RBIs (110) and a higher BA (.287) than Uggla (90, .282), and both played sick D. Uggla gets a boost for being on the Team of the Rookies, and for hitting a homerun that was enough to beat the phillies because Ryan Howard didn't hit two homeruns that game....oh wait, he did. Runner-Up: Zimmerman. Honorable Mention: Josh Johnson.