Pick your favorite rookie

Its Tommy Hanson. As a die-hard Cardinal fan, I hate not picking Rasmus - but he hasn’t performed. Tommy is a stud. I watched him in the Fall League, and saw what he had first hand but wondered how he would translate that in the bigs. He did not disappoint - he proved his worth at the top level of the game. He is not only the best rookie in this batch, he projects as the best for years to come.

J.A. Happ’s Home ERA is 4.04 (69 IP), but on the road he’s 1.99 (95 IP)!! I haven’t looked too deep, but I’m pretty sure the 1.99 road ERA is closer to his true value as a pitcher than the 4.04, due to the park effects of Citizens Bank. Hanson’s split is 3.34 (Home) and 2.61 (road). My vote slips over to Happ.

I know that Randy Wells won’t win the award (not after the last month and a half), but that he isn’t mentioned in Buster Olney’s breakdown of the top NL ROY candidates.  Instead of McGeehee and Wells, he includes Coghlan and Jones.  The latter two are better “prospects,” but haven’t had better 1st-year seasons than Wells and McGeehee.  I don’t really know the history of voters favoring better prospects, but this would seem to be an instance of Olney suggesting they do, right?

@Brian - The biggest difference in performance shows up in peripherals.  Happ has a 4.34 FIP with a ridiculously high strand rate.  Hanson is at 3.61.  Some of that can probably be ascribed to CBP being homer-happy, but not all of it, as Hanson K’s 1.5 more per 9 and walks about the same number.

@Doug - I feel the same way about campaigning for awards and all-star spots, etc., but there are few PR teams in baseball better than the Brewers.  They’ve built a lot of excitement about the team in Milwaukee and kept a lot of going this year despite a disappointing performance on the field.  You certainly can’t fault MIL for not spending on players or player development—the payroll keeps going up and they are among the top spenders in the draft as well.

Right, Happ’s success this year has come in large part from pitching really well with men on base.  While his high strand rate might suggest a regression in future years, it shouldn’t be counted against him for this year’s awards.

Yes, but his .266 BABIP should.

Wow, I can’t believe I read this and Chris Coghlan isn’t even mentioned among your top candidates.  If nobody outside of his division knows, then I think that’s a slight to guys like you who should be taking of just how good this guy has been.  He has done things that no other rookie has done- namely set hit records for August and September.  Also, i believe he may have lead all NL players in interleague hits this year. There isn’t another rookie out there that you can say that about.  And unlike most of your other listees, Coghlan has performed over a 500 at bat season, and performed extremely well, which I think is much more impressive than these flash in a pan 360 at bat guys, who easily could have slumped and wrecked their numbers in a full season.  As far as J.A. Happ and Tommy Hanson, these guys have performed really well, but over about 20 starts.  Let them start 10 more games and sustain their performance.

I also don’t really agree with the weak defensive claim.  While Coghlan is not a gold glove candidate, he was thrown out in LF with no prior experience and more than held his own, never at any time being a liability.

I can understand making a case for others besides Coghlan for ROY, but to merely mention him in a footnote is a mockery.  Sustaining a .319 average with pretty good pop over 500 at bats is impressive for anyone, not just a rookie.

Joe - the whole point of Defense Independent Pitching stats are to separate pitching and defense.

Say you have two pitchers on different teams.  One has a defense behind him that has saved roughly 30 runs above average (let’s call them the Phillies), and the other has a defense behind him that’s allowed roughly 30 runs below average (let’s call them the Braves). 

Each of these pitchers face 50 batters, strike out 20, walk 5, allow 5 home runs and 20 balls in play (of equal quality).  The good defensive team is only going to give up 5 hits on those balls in play, while the bad one will give up 10.  Accordingly the pitcher with the better defense behind him will have a better ERA than the pitcher with the worse defense behind him.  Would you say that pitcher actually performed any better?  Of course not; his defense did. 

So when you see that Happ’s BABIP is .266, that implies that the defense performed particularly well with him on the mound.  He absolutely should not be given credit for that.

That’s true Dylan.  However, it’s imperative to separate pitcher performance and defense performance.  That means you can’t use ERA.

The problem with FIP or tRA is that they eliminate timing also, which obviously relates heavily to pitcher performance.  So I would suggest using something like tRA/24 if that makes sense to you.

Maybe PZR?

Where’s Seth Smith?  I heard he has fewer than 130 ABs.