B.B.W.A.A. HAHAHAHAHAHA

The success of Boston area sports teams has sports fans around the country celebrating the failures of our athletes and hissing at us fans when we complain. Well to all you fans out there who are in that group, prepare to hiss. Josh Beckett was robbed of the Cy Young Award today. Beckett finished the season 20-7 one win better then C.C. Sabathia. The other statistic categories were practically identical with Beckett pitching about 40 innings less. Many point to the gap in innings, which was caused by Beckett having a stint on the disabled list as the reason Sabathia won. The first reason to complain about the voting of the 2007 Cy Young is the fact that Beckett was left off two ballots completely, Sabathia was also left off one ballot, this shows that the voters are either totally clueless or failed to vote for each of them for personal reasons. Were the two New York voters bitter that the Sox prevailed in the East? Perhaps the two Cleveland voters wanted to give the edge to Sabathia in what was thought to be a close race? Was there a Boston voter who did the same? Voters need to be held accountable by the public for how the cast their votes and the ballots should be released to the public. The other side to this whole argument uses pure fact to show that Beckett deserved the Cy Young more. He pitched 11 times this season against teams that would end up in the playoffs and 17 times against teams who would finish above .500 at seasons end. On the other side of this was Sabathia who pitched only four times against eventual playoff teams and 11 times against winning teams. Cleveland fans, and Red Sox haters are quick to point out that Beckett had a lot more starts against playoff teams because the Yankees made the playoffs. And that is actually the whole point. Beckett faced tougher competition and still succeeded at a similar rate to Sabathia, so shouldn't the one who had the tougher road end up on top at the end? Sabathia faced divisional opponents 18 times in 2007 and aside from Detroit, the teams in the AL Central were very bad offensive teams. Detroit was third in runs score in the majors while the other three, Minnesota, Kansas City and Chicago were ranked 25th, 27th and 28th respectively. Meantime up in the AL East Beckett had to face the top run scoring offense in baseball four times. Tampa Bay, Baltimore and Toronto meantime were ranked 15th, 16th and 17th in runs scored. Beckett by far had the tougher road and in the end he lead his team to the World Series title. Sabathia got an award he didn't deserve.

Rookie Of The Year!

Dustin Pedroia was named the American League Rookie of the Year Monday. Pedroia won the award easily. Several sports site comment sections have been ridiculing the choice saying Delmon Young was the more deserving rookie, however statistics do not back up that argument. In fact if one looked at the statistics they would ask why Pedroia wasn't a unanimous choice. The traditional money categories, home runs and RBI were in favor of Young, but he also had two advantages. First he had 120 more at bats then Pedroia and he also batted in a spot that had a lot of RBI opportunities. The differential in home runs wasn't that great. Pedroia had eight for Boston while Young had 13 for the Rays. So where did Pedroia win the award? His great defense at second base was one area that helped, but his bat did a lot of talking too. Pedroia scored 21 more runs then Young, 86-65. He also had one more double then Young, remember in 120 less at bats. Pedroia also excelled with his eye, he had 47 walks, but just 42 strikeouts. Meantime Young only had 26 walks and struck out 127 times. Young had advantages in hits 186-165, and stolen bases 10-7. Again this was with 120 extra at bats. What does all this come out to? For Pedroia it was a .317 average with a .380 OBP and a slugging percent of .442. For Young? .288, .316, .408. Advantage Pedroia. Seriously how can anyone make an argument for a guy with a .316 OBP? And to add to that the fact that Young had five more homers proved unimportant as Pedroia still slugged 34 points higher. Ladies and Gentleman, there wasn't and never should have been any doubt who deserved this award.

Youk's Glove Is Golden

Kevin Youkilis today won the American League Gold Glove for first baseman. Youkilis was the only Red Sox recipient as Coco Crisp was passed over. Youk becomes the first Sox Gold Glover since Jason Varitek took home the award for catchers in 2005. Last year when the Red Sox set a then Major League record for best fielding percent they received no Gold Gloves. This year Colorado set a new record and they also failed to ear a Gold Glove. Congrats Youk!