Jim Kaat: All deserving of the awards

Please, this is not to be meant as a condescending comment — Kaat has never won a Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

I’m happy for all the winners and the ones who didn’t win should feel good about being in the discussion, because they had to have very good seasons to be in consideration. Justin Verlander winning the AL MVP may have been somewhat of a surprise to some because you have certain voters — and there was at least one again this year — who don’t even give a pitcher any consideration for MVP. I understand their thinking, because — and please, this is not to be meant as a condescending comment — they have never played Major League Baseball and don’t realize the impact a starting pitcher has on the outcome of a game.

...With pitch counts, innings restrictions, and relief specialists, that has changed. I think that those things I referred to make Justin Verlander a better choice than ever because he did what pitchers did decades ago in an era where it is more unusual. When you saw his name listed as the starting pitcher, you knew the Tigers were going to be difficult to defeat. I’d give plenty of credit to the closers as well, like Valverde…  and how many titles would the Yankees have won in the past 15 years without Mariano Rivera?