ROYs: Obvious but Valid

I can hear Tim Kurkjian's voice in the back of my head. "THIIIIS IS THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1970 THAT BOTH ROOKIE OF THE YEEAR WINNERS HAVE SURNAMES THAT START WITH THE SAME LETTER..."

I'm not gonna act like this is a surprising outcome. Those will be here on Wednesday and Thursday. Rookie in the Year, though, seemed to be the one awards race where both spots were pretty much taken since mid-September.

The AL race is the weaker of the two. Are you gonna give it to Brandon Lowe if he missed a month or two? Why even bother giving it to John Means, an O's starter who'll be lucky if he repeats? Yordan Alvarez was golden from the moment he was brought up, and his ROY was a no-brainer.

The NL race wasn't even close. Who else but Pete Alonso was gonna take this? Tatis missed half the year. Hiura was brought down for a month. Soroka was a modest threat, but...Alonso's year was overwhelming. The guy broke Aaron Judge's rookie home run record, singlehandedly made his team a wild card threat, and is the centerpiece of the all-but-certain Mets revival in 2020. Give it to anyone else and you look quite silly.

Both men have earned the awards, and it'll be exciting to see where their careers go next. Wednesday, we get some Cy Youngs. I'm pretty sure I know how the AL race will turn out, but the NL one? A bit less certain.