Slim Loss for Zim, But Manny's the Man
Now Ryan Zimmerman knows how George Allen feels.
It was as close as they come, but when they counted the votes for NL Rookie of the Year, Zim narrowly lost to Florida shortstop Hanley Ramirez. DCist Matt saw it coming as the year wound down, posting about Ramirez in September: "If anybody's going to beat out our boy Zim, we think it's going to be this guy."
It's easy to make a convincing case for either player. Ramirez hit leadoff and was a terror on the basepaths, setting the table for an overachieving squad of youngsters. Zim cracked a veteran lineup and quickly established himself in the three hole as the team's premier clutch hitter while flashing some serious leather at third. One scored runs while the other knocked them in, but otherwise, their stats were nearly identical.
Photo by Flickr user Scott Ableman.
When two players are so evenly matched statistically, but give very different contributions to their ballclubs, there remains but one meaningful metric to separate them: wins. While the Nats spent the entire summer in the cellar, Florida's 78 wins went well beyond anyone's preseason expectations, keeping them in wild card contention until September. That may have provided just enough for Ramirez's slight edge in the voting.
Amazingly, five of Ramirez's Marlin teammates also received votes, with Dan Uggla and Josh Johnson finishing third and fourth, respectively. It's a scary group of talent that would have Florida fans dreaming, if there were any left after ownership slashed and burned two different World Champion rosters in the past 10 years in Miami.
Fortunately for Nats fans, D.C. came out on top this weekend in a different contest when news surfaced that the Nats had beaten out the A's for the managerial services of Manny Acta. While unproven at the Major League level, Acta has paid his dues at several levels in the U.S., Canada, and the Dominican.
We can't say we knew it would be him all along, but you've got to like a guy with the cajones to bench a slumping superstar, as Acta did to Soriano during the World Baseball Classic last spring. To do that, while keeping the respect and admiration of your roster requires an undeniable leadership presence, which Dave Sheinin examines in today's Post. That's good for a 10 or 15 win improvement in our books. He's certainly one of the most intriguing of the many names that surfaced during the team's lengthy and secretive search.
Lastly, from the stranger-than-fiction department: You've seen Acta's apartment on TV before. It was the site of the fatal plane crash last month involving Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle.