Pete Alonso officially joined Tom Seaver, Jon Matlack, Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, and Jacob deGrom as Mets players who have won the National League Rookie of the Year. With Alonso surpassing Aaron Judge‘s rookie record for homers, the honor was not only well deserved, but it made the announcement more of a coronation than anything.

Before Alonso was announced Yordan Alvarez was named the American League Rookie of the Year, and it was unanimous. When the announcement was made, we were all expecting to have two unanimous selections, but that didn’t happen as Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic was the only voter who voted for Mike Soroka.

Now, it should be noted Baggarly had a very sound basis for his decision. In addition to throw away narratives like Soroka being a real contender for the Cy Young Award, he also noted Soroka had a better WPA and WAR. He then explained how he was more impressed with Soroka keeping the ball in the ballpark than he was with Alonso hitting it out in an era of the lively baseball.

Even though Baggarly made the article more about himself and his concerns about Mets fans coming after him noting he had been warned by other writers “Mets Twitter is a special flavor of Twitter.” Still, even with the article being a bit too much “Look at me!” his justification for voting for Soroka wasn’t.

While 29 other voters and every single Mets fan alive disagrees, Baggarly made the determination Alonso was merely the second best rookie in the National League last year. At the end of the day, when decisions like this are made all you can ask from the voter is for due diligence and for their making a good faith argument.

That is exactly what Baggarly did here. Upon reading his article, you can disagree with his conclusions and the evidence upon which he relies. What you cannot disagree with is he didn’t undertake the analysis.

When all is said and done, the real question here isn’t about why Baggarly thought differently than almost everyone. No, the real question is who cares?

In annals of baseball history, there aren’t two separate lists for Rookies of the Year and unanimous Rookies of the Year. In fact, the voting is something which typically fades from memory.

For example, did you know Seaver wasn’t a unanimous choice? Neither was Strawberry or Gooden. The Gooden decision was all the more wrong than Alonso not winning the award unanimously.

In the end, what matters is the honor. Seaver, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame with a higher percentage of the vote than any starting pitcher, is every bit the Hall of Famer Gary Carter (sixth ballot) and Mike Piazza (fourth ballot) are.

The same holds true for Alonso. He is every bit the Rookie of the Year Alvarez is and all those who preceded both players. In the end, all we should care about is he won, and better yet, all the things that are to come.