It's Hardware Time, Part 5: Comeback Player Of The Year

I wish I had known they were going to announce these so soon because otherwise I would have posted about them sooner, but let's just say I don't disagree with Carlos Pena and Dmitri Young as the Comeback Players of the Year.

As I've said before, Pena is a simply amazing story. He bested his previous single-season homerun total by 19 this year and finally looks like the player he was supposed to be 5 years ago. Heck, if it wasn't for A-Rod, he probably would have led the league in homeruns (46). Not bad for a guy who wasn't even guaranteed a spot on the lowly Devil Rays in spring training.

Young is a good story too. He's had some off-field problems and also wasn't guaranteed anything in spring training. But he hit and hit and hit and ended up being Washington's sole All-Star representative in San Francisco this year. He also ended up being tied for 10th in the NL in average (.320).

What's interesting for fantasy players next year is that I don't imagine Young will be all-that-hot of a commodity on draft day, whereas Pena could be the the first AL first baseman off the board. Obviously the NL is teeming with talent there (Pujols, Howard, Fielder, Teixeira, Berkman, Lee) but would you take Pena over somebody like Justin Morneau or Paul Konerko? If you think he's going to come anywhere close to duplicating his 2007 season, you probably should. Then again, that's a big "if."