The Bleacher Bums: November 9, 2005 Archive

Awards for outstanding achievement in the field of excellence

Posted at 10:28 AM on November 9, 2005 by Ben Tesch (3 Comments)

In case you hadn't noticed, the season is over, and the time has come to dish out the awards for the players. In what will undoubtedly come as an upset in Twins Territory™, Bartolo Colon won the AL Cy Young Award, beating out Mariano Rivera and Johan Santana.

Yes, you heard that right: the pitcher with the most strikeouts and 2nd best ERA in the league got 3rd place. The pitcher in 3rd place in the voting had 80 more strikeouts, 61 points lower ERA, 2 fewer baserunners per game, more innings pitched, more complete games, and more shutouts than the winner. My favorite statistic on this robbery/oddity/travesty comes from Jayson Stark's column on ESPN.com:

Hitters who faced Colon had a batting average of .254 against him. The on-base percentage against Santana was .250. Any more objections, your honor?

In other awards news, Ryan Howard won the NL Rookie of the Year (leading people to believe that Jim Thome is getting a bit more expendable), and Huston Street won the AL side of things, giving the Oakland A's their second in a row, which makes me think that even though the Twins may be similar the A's, they are doing something that is giving them a definite edge.

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