If you don’t think Troy Tulowitzky was better than Ryan Braun in 2007, then you don’t think Ozzie Smith is a Hall of Famer.
Ok, that’s a little extreme, but as I’ve said before, Tulo’s edge in fielding value far outweighs Braun’s advantage on offense. In fact, Ryan Braun wouldn’t have even appeared on my ballot, which only goes three deep for some reason.
NL Rookie TVAR Troy Tulowitzky 50 Hunter Pence 35 Tim Lincecum 30ish? Chris B. Young 25 Kevin Kouzmanoff 25 Josh Hamilton 25 Ryan Braun 25
But enough of that (except to point out that Steve Phillips picked Braun while Rob Neyer picked Tulo.)
There’s an even bigger travesty in the Rookie of the Year voting over in the AL. Yes, Dustin Pedroia is a fine choice, but second place was ridiculous, unless Delmon Young and Jeremy Guthrie recently swapped names. Let’s take a look at Delmon Young first.
Rookie RBI Runs AVG OBP SLG RAR FAA TVAR Delmon Young 94 65 .288 .316 .408 4 -10 -10
Obviously the voters looked at the RBIs and batting average and stopped there. But the on-base and slugging percentages are both below average and Young was a poor fielder. Overall, he was worse than replacement level, about on par with Nick Punto. If only Punto was a rookie…
Once we remove Young from second place, we need to move Daisuke up there and slide Guthrie into third, banishing Bannister to wherever we put Young. Here are the numbers for the three notable AL rookie starters:
AL Rookie Starter IP ERA K/9 BB/9 HR/9 BABIP FIP xFIP Daisuke Matsuzaka 205 4.40 8.9 3.5 1.11 .299 4.35 4.42 Brian Bannister 165 3.87 4.4 2.5 .85 .261 4.52 5.14 Jeremy Guthrie 175 3.70 6.6 2.5 1.23 .270 4.52 4.41
How Bannister received votes while Guthrie didn’t, I have no idea Maybe it’s because of their win totals, which I refuse to post. Guthrie had a better ERA and more innings pitched. If you look at their peripherals, summarized by FIP (fielding-independent ERA), they’re all pretty even. Both Guthrie and Bannister had lots of help from their fielders, according to BABIP.
Bannister’s main strength was preventing homeruns, which was more fluke than skill according to xFIP, which uses flyball percentage to control for homerun rate. Pitchers don’t really control what percentage of outfield flyballs become homeruns and Bannister was pretty lucky in that department. If the Royals were smart, they’d trade him now — do you think there’s any market for a young pitcher who’s showed 3.87 ERA potential?
Guthrie and Matsuzaka had similar adjusted ERAs, but Daisuke threw 30 more innings. That’s pretty significant, and one of the reasons CC Sabathia deserves the Cy Young Award over Beckett and Bedard. To me, Daisuke was clearly the best rookie pitcher, with Guthrie a step behind. If you assume replacement level starters have a 5.50 ERA, Daisuke was one run better than replacement per 9 innings, or about 23 runs total. That’s almost good enough to challenge Pedroia’s 28 runs above replacement.
In summary:
Tulo, good. Braun, decent.
Pedroia, good. Young, bad.
Guthrie, decent, Bannister, bad.
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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.