Catching up on awards

As we wait with baited breath at word of progress in the Matsuzaka negotiations, there's a moment to catch up and offer some thoughts about the awards that came out in the last couple of days. Before I do, though, let me say that one unfortunate consequence of the front office following the return of Theo is that we can count on fewer and fewer leaks- or at least fewer accurate ones. Theo seems determined to keep a tight lid on internal stuff, so I wouldn't believe much of the speculation. In just the last two days, I've heard that Matsuzaka will get $8-9 million per year and I've also heard $14 million per. Both of those were from "insider" reports. I'm not believing anything until it comes out of Theo's face.

Brandon Webb and Johan Santana picked up Cy Young hardware this week. Johan was a no-brainer. He was the first pitcher in a couple of decades, I believe, to win the pitching triple crown throughout all of baseball. A couple of years ago, he led the AL in wins, strikeouts, and ERA, as did Pedro back in 2000, I believe. But this year, Santana's numbers were tops in BOTH leagues. That doesn't happen often. Curiously, had his own young teammate Francisco Liriano stayed healthy, there may have actually been some opportunity for debate. As for Webb, he was as reasonable choice as any in a pretty weak NL. Carlos Zambrano, Chris Carpenter, and Trevor Hoffman all had decent years. No one was dominant- heck, no one even came up with more than 17 wins. Webb has been an underappreciated pitcher since he entered the league- Dontrelle Willis and his big leg kick and big smile stole the Rookie of the Year award from Webb a few years back, and he also had to live in the shadow of the Big Unit for a couple years. It's nice to see him get some recognition- he's probably the best groundball/strikeout pitcher since Kevin Brown in his prime.

As predicted, Joe Girardi wins Manager of the Year after getting fired. All he did was take an incredibly young team with a payroll around $15 million (a TOTAL payroll) and make them wild card contenders. Bud Selig really needs to use his "good of the game" powers to reconsider Marlins ownership. They could really have something special down there. Jim Leyland picks up AL Manager of the Year for succeeding where Alan Trammel failed. I think some of this had to do with another year of maturation with his pitchers, and part of it represents an actual ability of certain managers to make a difference. Leyland made a difference. That's pretty cool.