It’s still a rare and impressive feat, but there is a selfish part of me that wishes it would stay even rarer so that my experience can remain that much more special.

In terms of whether they should be considered rookies, I’m split. I, without a doubt, believe that the MLB is the premiere baseball league in the world. I don’t think there are any that compare to it, both in terms of talent and difficulty. With that in mind, why wouldn’t someone that had never played in the MLB be considered a rookie? If you say that someone playing in another professional league is not a rookie during his first year in the MLB, then you are essentially saying that he played in a league that was equivalent to the MLB. When you grant that equivalency, and base his tenure on his “imported” playing time, I think you have to import his statistics at that point as well.

As much as I hate Chipper getting robbed of RotY (and I think he was robbed regardless of whether Nomo was a true rookie or not) I think I would much rather something like that happen, than a player come over with 800 home runs, play a season, and then retire the home run king.

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