He was ridiculously bad last year, and he has stifled the incessant jokes this year.

And I’m taking into consideration the first four games of Liriano, and the amount of time each actually contributed to the team.

I voted Punto. last year he could get nothing right, not even a sac bunt. This year, I wasnt ashamed that he was on our team.

Fifteen people voted for Punto? Wow. This year is just part of the ebb and flow of his career. His OPS+ has fluctuated wildly: 48, 72, 68, 90, 52, 96. I doubt it will ever get higher than 96, and it likely will go back below the mean of 74 next year. But 96 hardly qualifies as comback player of the year.

He had a nice year. He stabilized a position racked by injuries. I was particularly pleased that he seemed to play under control for a change, with better than his average results. But he’s about 15th on my list of MVPs for this team. He certainly wasn’t a reason for this team’s success. A 665 OPS with RISP for 28 RBIs are the numbers that stand out to me. He was just not that important to this team this year. I guess relative to the worst year for a third baseman in history, it was a huge improvement. But to reward him for the improvement rewards him for how horrible he was last year as much as how he had a mediocre year this year.

Liriano, on the other hand, was the Twins’ best pitcher during the time he was here. He came from flat line last year to nearly pitching 200 innings while going a combined 16-6 with a combined 3.4 ERA.