MLB awards make it all clear as mud

And just like the baseball season that wandered finally into folly and indifference, postseason awards confirm how dreary it all was.First of all, they were all wrong, all except Joe Maddon, Tampa Bay's manager, but that implies that the argument is worth making.This was the year that former Rockie-turned-Athletic Matt Holliday, stiffed a season ago, could have won MVP, yet he shall forever remain a victim of bad timing.Here are the big ones, and I had no vote, which means my ax is neither ground nor bare.-- MVPs: Albert Pujols of St. Louis and Dustin Pedroia of Boston.-- Cy Youngs: Tim Lincecum of San Francisco and Cliff Lee of Cleveland.-- Rookies: Geovany Soto of Chicago and Evan Longoria of Tampa Bay.-- Managers: Lou Piniella of Chicago and Joe Maddon of Tampa Bay.So, and this is a question asked even at the corner of Broad and Market, where is Philadelphia? More particularly, where is Brad Lidge? Ah, I guess he could not be seen because he was being hugged by his teammates after winning the World Series.Now, I do have a phonetic rooting interest in Lincecum of the Giants, a team that -- ahem -- finished behind the Rockies, but was he the best pitcher in the National League? Not at all, not as a starter -- that would be 22-7 Brandon Webb of Arizona -- and certainly not as a relief pitcher, not as valuable as Lidge, who saved 41 games in 41 chances.Without Lincecum, the Giants are what they are, afterthoughts and wannabes, while without Lidge, the Phillies are not in the playoffs, not in the World Series and not champions for only the second time in their lives.In the American League, the Indians' Cliff Lee won the Cy Young mostly because he won 22 games, while the Indians were otherwise disappointing. You have to wonder how one 22-game winner is judged correctly and another one is not.And still, the AL winner should have been Francisco Rodriguez of the Angels, with a major league record 62 saves, the little engine that pulled his team so far in front that by the end, they forgot how to win when it mattered.And speaking of goofy, let's consider that Lidge finished eighth in the MVP voting while Lincecum finished 23rd.Now the Phillies had others deserving of notice. It was much as it was with the Rockies last year, as if the Phillies sneaked into the World Series in the trunk of someone's car.If not Lidge, then Chase Utley, or certainly Ryan Howard, the full-size first baseman, should have been the MVP over Pujols.Howard was the major league leader in home runs (48) and RBI (146), if that power did come at the cost of a higher batting average.It was not that Pujols had a worse year than did Howard, but in terms of value, who is the most valuable, Howard clearly was more so. Pujols said when Howard won the award two years ago that only players that lead their teams to the playoffs deserve the honor, which Pujols did not do.All that aside, there was no more valuable player in the National League than Manny Ramirez, who only played a third of the season in the league. There is not a greater example of a single player reviving a team than Ramirez, changing the Dodgers from sleepwalkers to playoff winners.Ramirez's numbers, in both leagues, are comparable to Pujols' for the year, but just in the National, he was phenomenal, hitting nearly .400 with 17 homers and 53 RBI. Projecting that over an entire season, he hits 52 and drives in 162.This brings us to Dustin Pedroia, the Red Sox second baseman, and league MVP for no logical reason other than someone from Boston always has to get some sort of award.It is always a challenge to think of any second baseman as most valuable at anything, playing the coat-check position on the baseball team. You know, at a party, he would be the guy in charge of taking the coats while everyone else enjoyed themselves.Other than Ryne Sandberg and Craig Biggio, and now maybe Utley, it is hard to think of a significant second baseman in recent memory. So, to be an MVP, a second baseman must be exceptional, a better fielder than the shortstop, a better hitter than the center fielder and with more power than the first baseman.Pedroia was not any of those things, his season numbers less than Ramirez's before Manny was run out of Boston.Compared to, say, Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees, he was just another guy, The other Rodriguez was more valuable for the Angels and Justin Morneau of the Twins was better than any of them.Maybe Ramirez should have been MVP of both leagues.(Contact Bernie Lincicome of the Rocky Mountain News at lincicomeb(at)RockyMountainNews.com.)