With the award season coming to a close and my Mets sweeping their respective awards, there is just one question that I still have.

How did Pete Alonso not win the National League Rookie of the Year award by unanimous decision?

I mean really.

I guess the better question is how did Aaron Judge win the American League award in 2017 by unanimous decision? The two had similar paths to winning the award, yet Judge was able to secure all 30 first-place votes, while Alonso received 29.

Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Mike Soroka was given the other first-place vote.

Because of the hype surrounding Fernando Tatis Jr., I thought he would have been the one to steal a vote away from Alonso, but he did not receive any first-place votes.

Let me say this before I go any further: Soroka had a phenomenal year. He ended the season with a record of 13-4 and a 2.68 ERA. For a rookie, that’s pretty good.

But the fact of the matter is Alonso broke the single-season home run record for all rookies with 53 long balls. He finished with a .260 batting average, 120 RBIs and only missed one game throughout the entire year.

One game.

Think about that for a second. Alonso played in 161 games during the 2019 regular season. There were only five players who played more games than him this season. Five.

I know that comparing how many games Alonso played to how many Soroka appeared in is unfair, and I’m not saying that is the sole reason Alonso should have secured that last first-place vote.

But this does show how valuable Alonso is and will continue to be for the foreseeable future to the Mets.

Now, let’s go back to 2017 and look at who Judge beat out for the Rookie of the Year award.

In 2017 Red Sox outfielder Andrew Benintendi finished second in the voting behind Judge. Benintendi finished the year with a .271 batting average, 20 home runs and 90 RBI’s. Judge finished with a batting average of .284, 114 RBIs, and 52 long balls.

Do I think Benintendi deserved to win the award over Judge? No. Do I think he should have received first-place votes? If we are going to do the same thing for Soroka, yes.

I know you can dive deeper into the stats and look at wins above replacement (WAR) among other things, but just looking at the production on the field and how they took the city by storm, if you are going to give one the award unanimously, you should give the other the same treatment.