Something that may surprise you

Believe it or not, our very own John Lannan is a semi-candidate for the Rookie of the Year award. He does have some work to do, as he is fighting with two other very good pitchers at the moment, not to mention the batters who could pull it out (and it is still only the beginning of May, with plenty of baseball left to play), but at least he is emerging as a possible candidate.

Here's a comparison I made on Google Docs between Lannan and his two main pitching competitors: Jair Jurrjens (ATL) and Hiroki Kuroda (LAD). Leaders between the three pitchers are bolded, and as you will see, Lannan doesn't lead anything as of yet...the key, however, is that the stats are only through 8 starts and he has another 20 something starts to work with to pass the other two pitchers. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but the pitchers are essentially on even ground, considering they still have another 100-150 innings to pitch this year.

This all being said, he still has to fight against guys like Geovany Soto, Kosuke Fukudome, Joey Votto and Blake DeWitt who are all mashing the ball. Max Scherzer could be a dark horse if he gets enough innings pitched as well. But I would bet my ridiculously low bank account balance that one of the 4 pitchers (Jurrjens, Kuroda, Lannan or Scherzer) seriously challenges one of the 4 hitters (Soto, Fukudome, Votto and DeWitt) for the ROY crown. Here's to hoping Lannan can be that guy for the Nats.