Jason Bay Rookie of the Year?

Rotowire suggests that Bay should be in the hunt for the 2004 Rookie of the Year award.

Someone help me out. My understanding is that a player needs less than 130 at-bats or 45 days on a MLB roster in the previous year to qualify as a rookie. Bay meets the at-bat requirement but the service time is close, especially if his 2003 DL time counts. Anyone know for sure?

I don't really give a damn about RoY awards or All-Star appearances. As a fan, for me they are distractions from the main event - the winning and losing - and I'd almost rather have a Pirate not win such awards. With RoY, you get these added expectations the following year. Better to come in under the radar I think. With the All-Star appearances, you miss three days of rest and risk injury in a mid-season exhibition game. Plus, both awards would surely increase a player's value at arbitration time. Sure, that's cold and calculating, but if you don't put the wins first when you're losing long and often, when do you put the wins first? After five in a row the Pirates are still eleven games under .500.

That said, out of a basic love of humanity, I have to root for our boys to win such things if those things help to motivate them and make them happy and so forth. They may be trivial to some fans, but I'm sure they are a big deal to some of the players.