Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
November 10, 2008
Rookie Winners
Evan Longoria

Evan Longoria
Photo: Icon SMI

Evan Longoria and Geovaney Soto took home Rookie of the Year honors today. Evan won the AL version of the award unanimously, and Soto received 31 of 32 first place votes.

Longoria belted sixty extra-base hits in just three quarters of a season. He also shone defensively as he prevented runs in the field and added runs at the plate, helping the Rays to their first winning season, first division title and first AL pennant. His 2008 seasonal age was just 22, so his ceiling is very high coming off that impressive rookie year. He did a great job justifying the large contract the Rays negotiated with him at the start of the season.

Geovany Soto

Geovany Soto
Photo: Icon SMI

Soto teased Cubs fans with his high OBA in just 18 games in 2007. He lived up to that brief cup of coffee, posting a .364 OBA and a .504 slugging percentage in 2008. He was one of the reasons the Cubs put together one of their best seasons getting on base that I can remember. Like Longoria, Soto also smacked 60 extra-base hits on the season. Soto didn't do a great job of stopping the running game, only stopping 18 of 87 base stealers. The Cubs staff did turn in a low ERA, however, and the catcher should get some credit for that.

It's been fifteen years since a catcher won the prize. Mike Piazza was the last to take home the honor from behind the plate. It should be noted that all the catchers who won the award, starting with Johnny Bench in 1968, went on to excellent careers. In addition to Bench, the award went to Thurman Munson, Carlton Fisk, Benito Santiago and Sandy Alomar. That's good company.

Congratulations to both Evan Longoria and Geovany Soto on their well deserved Rookie of the Year awards!


Posted by David Pinto at 02:22 PM | Awards | TrackBack (0)
Comments

More evidence that some of the writers voting have no business voting: Edinson Volquez with three 2nd place votes and he's not even eligible.

Posted by: Boomer at November 10, 2008 03:11 PM

Well, those were easy and well-deserved. The AL MVP's going to be interesting.

Posted by: Syd at November 10, 2008 05:58 PM
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