And let's start the offseason speculation ... who are the favourites and darkhorses to win the *2006* AL and NL Comeback Player of the Year awards?

I like Junior's Cincy teammate Austin Kearns and Boston Red Sox OF/DH Bernie Williams, myself.

AL -- Frank Thomas
NL -- Jason Schmidt

AL Beltre
NL Bonds

IMO, this is dispicable. The guy gets a load of health issues from self-inflicted injuries from shooting himself up with steroids and he gets rewarded for it? To me, that's crap. But hey, atleast he came clean with it! That's trash.

AL: Halladay
NL: Thome

Depeche Jay, it is a little dispicable because he is coming back from something everybody knows he did, but he won't admit to it.

Having said that, he was never caught using steroids or banned substances so Giambi has not been caught "red-handed" We don't know 100% for sure that he used steroids, we think that he used steroids. It is different from being a known steroid user.

If Rafael Plameiro wins the award next year, then it will be horrible. If that happens, the only possible explanation will be Viagra threatened to pull the sponsorship of this award if they didn't vote for Raffy.

Oh, and Ken Griffey Jr. really did deserve it.

Anyone who can't conclude beyond a shadow of a doubt that Giambi did steroids at this point is far too wishy washy to draw their own conclusions in any situations. Leaked Grand Jury testimony that nobody has rushed to refute is all the evidence I need.

Gotta agree with Hippy on this one. Especially with that weird "apology for nothing really specific" that Giambi had.

Has it been proven that the various ailments that bothered Jason Giambi are direct results of steroids?

NL Gagne
AL Foulke

sticking with the closers for next year.

Shortstop, I think I may change my prediction and steal yours ... those are both VERY good ideas.

I'm surprised closers, who are so up-and-down, don't win it more often.

Halladay the "Comeback player of the year"? Shoot, the dude was awesome <i>this</i> year! And at any rate, I don't think he missed enough time to warrant consideration for the award in 2006.

I was wondering about the qualification rules when I picked Halladay, actually. Griffey played 83 games last year, and was pretty good; he just didn't spend as much time injured this year (and it's not like he stayed healthy all year, 128 games played is more than a month of games missed). Halladay made 19 starts this year, 21 the year before. Is that too many to get considered? It's been two straight injury years for him at this point. Does anyone know if there are formal definitions for the comeback award in terms of games played/AB, IP?

When I told Mrs. Hank that Giambi was the AL comeback player of the year she suggested Pete Rose would be a good fit for the award whenever MLB lifts his lifetime ban.

Raffy and Viagra are perfect for each other, but I'm tickled with Giambi winning it this year. Pills are tacky, kids.