The baseball writers got it right. Dustin Pedroia is your 2008 Most Valuable Player, and a deserving one at that. Pedroia dominated the voting, earning more than half of the first place votes as he beat out Justin Morneau and teammate Kevin Youkilis for the award.
I tauted Pedroia for MVP back in August when he was up against Carlos Quentin for the lead (an injury late in the year cost Quentin, and the White Sox, dearly) and I’m very glad he took it home. In a year that saw Manny Ramirez live out a SNL sketch-level greedy ballplayer fantasy, Pedroia put the team on his back and helped the Sox reach the playoffs and return to the ALCS.
Not bad for a guy that had to deal with questions about whether or not he was “good enough” to cut it in the big leagues. I remember when Theo Epstein drafted this guy and talked about how tough he was and what kind of heart he had. Theo nailed it. Pedroia is hardly the scariest looking hitter in the big leagues. He doesn’t really intimidate when he steps into the box, but he swings the bat like a lumberjack and plays the game with exuberance. What more could you ask?
So in two years our little second baseman has put a Rookie Of the Year Award, Gold Glove and now the MVP in his trophy case. Not bad for the first two years of a career. The only other guy that I can think of that has had this kind of success this early in a career is Freddy Lynn, who won both the ROY and MVP as a rookie in 75. Doc Gooden and Sterocket Clemens also great runs early, but pitchers are a different animal.
Good for the little horse we all ride upon. Can’t wait to see what he does in year 3.
The views and opinions in the Enterprise blogs are those of the author and are not neccessarily shared by Falmouth Publishing.
Don’t forget the Silver Slugger award and he is the first 2nd Baseman since Nellie Fox to win the MVP. NELLIE F’N FOX…do you realize how long ago that was?