Justin over at JinAZ on the Reds put together a pretty straight-forward analysis of the Rookie of the Year award (not including pitchers). Basically, he uses this brilliant formula:
hitting + fielding = value
For metrics, Justin pulls out VORP and his own manipulations of the Hardball Times Zone Rating numbers. Here’s his table:
Name Team Pos VORP +-Runs TotalValue Tulowi COL SS 36.3 27.2 63.5 Pence HOU CF 36.8 6.4 43.2 Pedroi BOS 2B 32.6 -3.7 28.9 Young ARI CF 15.3 11.6 26.9 Buck OAK RF 18.3 8.4 26.7 Loney LAN 1B 24.8 -0.6 24.2 Braun MIL 3B 50.3 -27.5 22.8 Escoba ATL IF 22.0 -2.5 19.5 Hamilt CIN CF 25.9 -8.4 17.5 Harris TBA SS/2B 25.1 -7.7 17.4
That’s right, even though Braun had by far the best rookie bat, his glove was awful — a full fifty runs worse than Tulowitzky. Now, single season data, especially for fielding metrics, is prone to strange variations. Based on just one fielding metric, I’d regress those numbers a fair amount. But Baseball Prospectus agrees with Justin:
Nate Silver: My first instinct is certainly to say Braun on the RoY question, but what’s interesting is that the DTs perceive an absolutely enormous difference in fielding acumen between the two; Tulo is at +21 (!) while Braun is at -17 (!). I think I’d want to see some independent confirmation of those fielding numbers before I could make any judgment.
I’d rather have Braun going forward. What’s interesting about both of them is that PECOTA expected that they’d be pretty darn good this year, but also that they won’t experience a lot of growth from here outward — it think they’re both early peak guys.
I wonder what the Fans’ Scouting Report will have to say about their fielding skills. Neither one appears on the preliminary lists of top and bottom three at each position.
Update: Tango’s on the ball, running through the Tulowitzky/Braun numbers (comment #4). Basically, the fans put Braun about 30 runs behind Tulowitzky in overall defense, about five runs of which is the difference between the average 3B and SS. So now, comparing Tulo’s fielding to Braun’s, we’ve got Tulo +55 according to JinAZ Zone Rating, +38 according to BPro, and +25 according to the fans. Given that he’s only 14 runs behind Braun in VORP, I’m quite happy going with Tulo as the better player in 2007.
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Sky is a baseball fan and racket sport afficianado living in upstate NY. His favorite color is orange and is just about ready to give up on his life-long dream to become the next Magnus ver Magnuson (World's Strongest Man). His favorite baseball teams are the Yankees and Red Sox, proving that there's hope in the Middle East.
September 25th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Piling on Bruan, and adding to Sky’s last post, his throwing errors actually make his defense even worse than what Justin uses in his post (unless you’ve incorporated this in there) — because of the additional base advancement on the throwing errors. Now, I doubt he’s actually -27 runs, but still, the throwing errors which aren’t even accounted for would likely cancel out some of the regression to the fielding numbers.