UPDATE: We now know who the voters who left Buster Posey and Jason Heyward off their Rookie of the Year ballots were: Yasushi Kikuchi of the Kyodo News (He’s a member of the L.A.-Anaheim BBWAA Chapter) was the only one to omit Posey. He had Gaby Sanchez first, Heyward second and Jaime Garcia third. The voter to omit Jason Heyward was Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He had Posey first, and two Pirates — Neil Walker and Jose Tabata — second and third.
I can almost see Kikuchi’s vote if you assume that he’s a total hardass about playing time. Still ridiculous to leave Posey off because his production more than outweighed his lost time, but at least there’s a potential philosophical thread to hold onto there. Dejan, though? Dude, that’s just nuts. The Pittsburgh guy voting for two Pirates, neither of whom were considered top rookies by really anyone this year, is sketchy. I hope Dejan writes a column explaining his votes, because absent any other explanation, it smells like rank homerism. I like and respect Kovacevic’s work, so I want there to be a better reason than that.
2:33 P.M.: Like I said, I don’t take issue with Buster Posey taking the NL Rookie of the Year Award. Strong season, definitely deserving, even if I would have gone with Heyward. They were excruciatingly close in my mind once you controlled for Heyward playing in more games, but I don’t for the life of me presume to know how to value Posey’s defensive contributions and they may have made up for it. You’ll never hear me complain about Heyward not winning.
But I can complain about this: one writer left Buster Posey off his ballot entirely. One writer left Jason Heyward off. That is simply unreasonable.
Check out the voting yourself:there are 32 voters. Each one gets to name three players on their ballot. Both Posey and Heyward were named on only 31 ballots. I don’t care if you have Posey first or Heyward first, but how do you not have one of them either first, second or third?
Can this be explained by Gaby Sanchez’s two inexplicable first place votes? Is there a Florida insurgency? Did Sanchez’s flying clothesline of Nyjer Morgan not only catapult him higher in the rankings than he deserves, but also knock out votes for Posey and Heyward?
Inquiring minds want to know . . .
