2009 SB Nation Baseball Awards: Rookie of the Year

by baseballgirl on Nov 11, 2009 9:47 AM PST

I'm technically a day behind the SBN sites who participated in the voting, but yesterday's fantastic post deserved its own full day. If you are a Rays fan who just registered for AN for the trade discussion, please feel free to participate in the post below.

This year, SB Nation took a vote on the major baseball award categories and I thought Rookie of the Year would mean the most to AN. Obviously, our very own Andrew Bailey is up for the award, which will be announced next week.

Here are the results of the SB Nation poll; Bailey received the highest number of first place votes, but ultimately lost out to Elvis Andrus.

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Elvis Andrus	Texas Rangers	6	9	6	63
2	Andrew Bailey	Oakland Athletics	11	1	3	61
3	Jeff Niemann	Tampa Bay Rays	3	5	3	33
4	Rick Porcello	Detroit Tigers	2	7	2	33
5	Brett Anderson	Oakland Athletics	5	1	3	31
6	Gordon Beckham	Chicago White Sox	1	2	8	19
7	Nolan Reimold	Baltimore Orioles	1	-	1	6
8	Matt Wieters	Baltimore Orioles	-	1	3	6
9	Brad Bergesen	Baltimore Orioles	-	1	-	3
10	Ricky Romero	Toronto Blue Jays	-	1	-	3
11	Travis Snider	Toronto Blue Jays	-	1	-	3

One of those first place votes was mine.

I wrote this piece on Bailey in early September, comparing his numbers to Huston Street's ROY numbers in 2005. Bailey has since surpassed these numbers, which would have given him the award four years ago. However, this year's A's closer is up against a deserving Andrus, and the tough pitching competition of Niemann and Porcello.

There is no real way to tell which way the voters will go until the award is announced, but I am even more convinced now than I was in September that Andrew Bailey deserves the award. And not because I'm comparing Bailey to other rookies, but because I'm comparing him to the very best closers in the league.

The Bill James Handbook shows us the numbers (out of top 10):

Relief Opp Batting Average

Bailey #1
Nathan #2
Rivera #9

Relief Earned Run Average

Rivera #2
Bailey #3
Nathan#6

Rel Opp BA w/ Runners On

Rivera #1
Nathan #2
Bailey #4

Strikeout/Hit Ratio

Nathan #1
Bailey #4

Relief Opp On Base Pct.

Bailey #2
Rivera #4
Nathan #5

Relief Opp Slugging Avg.

Bailey #2
Nathan #6
Rivera #9

Bailey wasn't just good this year; he was great. But he has a few disadvantages that may cost him the award.

1) The A's weren't competitive this year. At any point.
2) Bailey didn't become the team closer until well into the season. He missed several save ops, and 30+ saves may have been the difference in securing that first place vote.
3) He is up against some stiff competition; including fellow pitchers.

Was he good enough in 2009 on a bad team to overcome the odds? Do you agree or disagree with the SB Nation blogger votes? Who do you think will win the ROY?

0 recs | 58 comments

Comments

You missed one.

1) The A’s weren’t competitive this year. At any point.
2) Bailey didn’t become the team closer until well into the season. He missed several save ops, and 30+ saves may have been the difference in securing that first place vote.
3) He is up against some stiff competition; including fellow pitchers.

4) Brett Anderson was better.

mikev - November 11, 2009 reply

POW!

chipper1001 - November 11, 2009 reply

I'm not actually sure that's true

Anderson certainly projects as more valuable in the future. But that’s not the same thing as saying he was better this year. His RA was almost exactly league average. Bailey’s was much better than that, albeit in fewer innings.

A lot of that average-ness is not really Anderson’s fault (15 unearned runs certainly implies that hamfisted defense behind him had a lot to do with it) but… I’m not sure the ROY award is the right vehicle for tackling that problem.

PaulThomas - November 11, 2009 reply

Anderson's pRAA measured by tRA was better than Bailey's -- 27 to 22

WaddellCanseco - November 11, 2009 reply

Again, though, tRA is abstracting events on the field to better predict performance

Most of what is thrown out is garbage (how close a ball was hit to a fielder/where the defense was playing/whether they caught the ball or not), but there’s enough meat in it that I’m not comfortable using it to hand out retrospective awards.

PaulThomas - November 11, 2009 reply

If the question is "Whose pitching prevented the most runs in 2009?"

then I can see an argument for Anderson. If the question is “Who was pitching when the defense (including pitching) prevented the most runs in 2009?”, then I’d go with Bailey for the reasons that you stated.

Of course then you have to compare that to Andrus.

WaddellCanseco - November 11, 2009 reply

The A's not being competitive is completely and totally 100% irrelevant.

It’s an individual award, not a team award. Besides, the fact that they weren’t competitive makes Bailey’s accomplishments all the more impressive… which blows #2 out of the water, also.

UncleLeo - November 11, 2009 reply

It's certainly irrelevent to me

but you’re kidding yourself if you don’t think the voters take ‘high pressure games’ into account. I’m sure they do; they have in the past.

baseballgirl - November 11, 2009 reply

It DOES make Bailey's numbers even more incredible

when you consider that his defense was crap behind him and the team didn’t win a lot of games.

I wish the writers didn’t see “hey, playoff team!” and automatically give an edge to a player, but don’t they?

baseballgirl - November 11, 2009 reply

Exactly.

He got those good results WITHOUT having a good team behind him… WITHOUT having a good offense to present him with 2-3 virtually “automatic” saves a week.

UncleLeo - November 11, 2009 reply

Absolutely...

…the A’s were lucky to score 3-4 runs a game, much less give him a save op with their rookie pitching!

If he had closed the whole season, probably has 30-35 saves, easily.

baseballgirl - November 11, 2009 reply

the best bloggers are better than the best sportswriters.

Sportswriters are only good for giving us something to link to.

Gaijin_Suketto - November 11, 2009 reply

Exactly.

High-pressure games count for more than meaningless games. And since all Yankees games are high-pressure by definition, any player who plays for the Yankees is, by definition, more important than any player who does not. That is why, for example, Derek Jeter deserves the Gold Glove.

iglew - November 11, 2009 reply

I can see an argument that playing for a big market team results in more revenues/win

and therefore players who generate wins for big market teams are more valuable than Joe Mauer.

That’s why Jeremy Giambi was ALDS MVP in 2001.

WaddellCanseco - November 12, 2009 reply

Why stop there?

If “valuable” is defined by revenues generated, we should also take into consideration the player’s salary.

iglew - November 13, 2009 reply

Brett Anderson as a rookie

had 3.8 WAR.

Other ROY candidates:
Andrus – 3 WAR
Nieman – 3.2 WAR
Porcello – 1.9 WAR
Bailey – 2.4 WAR
Beckham – 2 WAR
Reimold – 1 WAR

Pitchers less valuable than Brett Anderson:
Mark Buerhle – 3.4 WAR
Andy Pettitte- 3.3 WAR
Johan Santana – 2.8 WAR
Derek Lowe – 2.7 WAR

All numbers courtesy of Fangraphs.

I don’t think it’s possible for me to express how good Brett Anderson was his rookie year and how it much of a travesty it will be if he doesn’t win ROY.

eastbayexpat - November 11, 2009 reply

For right or for wrong, his W-L record will keep him from winning the award.

UncleLeo - November 11, 2009 reply

Absolutely...

…and Bailey’s save total will probably keep him from winning, too

baseballgirl - November 11, 2009 reply

He was unlucky last season

It’s not a “travesty” for seasonal awards to take luck into account. I mean, to reduce things to absurdity, the most important award of all— the World Series Championship— certainly takes luck into account…

I mean, look at Magglio Ordonez’s 2007. He was lucky as shit that year. Does that mean he wasn’t an MVP candidate? Nah, just means predicting him to repeat the feat in 2008 would be a bad idea.

PaulThomas - November 11, 2009 reply

A bit of hyperbole

Of course you can reduce a whole lot of things to luck, but for awards rewarding individual achievement, it seems like many of the luck based factors can be taken out (like bad defense or bad offense).

Do the Royals having an utterly terrible team detract from Zach Greinke’s achievement?

That doesn’t mean that voter will take those things in account (in fact I’d be surprised if most of the did). It just makes me a bit sad that they don’t and won’t.

eastbayexpat - November 11, 2009 reply

In my mind...

…the writers sit down, look at the W/L records, and decide from there. It’s almost impossible to win the Cy without 20 wins if another pitcher has the 20 wins. See: Santana a couple of years ago; didn’t he lose out to Colon in a HUGE travesty?

baseballgirl - November 11, 2009 reply

It's ancient history, but...

…I still think that Mike Norris got gypped for the 1980 Cy Young. Yeah, Steve Stone went 25-7, but Norris (22-9) out-shined him in nearly every other category other than wins.

UncleLeo - November 11, 2009 reply

Let me make clear, I'm not saying that what team you're on should play a role

That’s idiotic.

What I am saying is that given that defense and luck and skill are all intertwined in a pitcher’s runs allowed, it makes more sense in a past-performance award to include all of those factors than to exclude many of them. (By contrast, a predictive stat shouldn’t mind throwing out some minor skill elements as long as they’re outweighed by luck elements.)

I’m willing to take things like strikeouts and walks into account but for me, end-of-year pitching awards ultimately come down to RA unless two players are very very close.

PaulThomas - November 11, 2009 reply

hmm

I guess it all matters what you believe the ROY to mean. Best rookie performance (i.e. rookie MVP), rookie with the most upside (i.e. if the draft were held today of this year’s rookies who would you pick?), or some amalgam of the two?

If it’s the last one, then both past performance AND predictive stats need to be taken into account, which makes the ROY award unique among MLB awards.

eastbayexpat - November 11, 2009 reply

I didn't realize this was in flux...

I always thought ROY and Rookie MVP were synonymous.

Gaijin_Suketto - November 11, 2009 reply

I'm not sure

If only because a good deal of the value of the rookie is in his upside. I don’t quarrel with your characterization (it certainly would make things clearer) but the history is a bit more mixed on what the voters interpreted the ROY to mean.

I remember the buzz around Bobby Crosby as ROY less about his performance (.324 OBP) and more about how he was the heir to Miguel Tejada.

I mean Daniel Cabrera took third in that vote with an ERA of 5.00 and a 0.85 K/BB. The votes he got certainly weren’t based on his performance. I suspect it had something to do with a 6’9" projectable frame.

eastbayexpat - November 11, 2009 reply

I was under the impression that there just weren't any good rookies that season

so a league-average-ish performance from Crosby was good enough to take the title.

PaulThomas - November 11, 2009 reply

Same here

If this was an award for rookie with the most upside, Brett Anderson wins in a walk.

Then again, by that criterion, Justin Upton should have won the NL RoY in 2007 when he just barely slipped over the AB threshold.

PaulThomas - November 11, 2009 reply

Anderson had the highest WAR of all rookies, no?

mikev - November 11, 2009 reply

Yes, but WAR is based on FIP, and FIP is worse than tRA for context-free

performance (IMHO) and worse than ERA+ for defense-aided run prevention and worse than WPA for clutchiness.

WaddellCanseco - November 12, 2009 reply

WAR. huh.

Good god, what is it good for?

mikev - November 12, 2009 reply

Finding out how much better a player is than a readily available replacement player,

good god, y’all!

Gaijin_Suketto - November 12, 2009 reply

Same

If this was an award for rookie with the most upside, Brett Anderson wins in a walk.

Then again, by that criterion, Justin Upton should have won the NL RoY in 2007 when he just barely slipped over the AB threshold.

PaulThomas - November 11, 2009 reply

Actually, I take that back

Matt Wieters also exhausted his rookie eligibility this season.

So he would win the “upside” award…

PaulThomas - November 11, 2009 reply

That's the problem with WAR using FIP

Anderson allowed more runs this year than his raw stats would suggest he should have. Part of the reason for that is Anderson got beat up pretty badly with RISP (.849 OPS) compared to when the bases were empty (.679 OPS).

Regardless of whether you think such a split is useful in making a projection going forward (I think there’s some evidence of “clutch pitching,” certainly much more than there is for clutch hitting), it certainly impacts the value Anderson produced in 2009.

FIP pretends all BIP are of equal value and that the order of events doesn’t matter. Even if you think treating all BIP the same is a good way to account for fielding, there is a real difference between allowing a double before a walk or after a walk.

Danny - November 11, 2009 reply

Is that any different to WAR using wOBA?

Graham MacAree - November 11, 2009 reply

A little bit

As I mentioned above, there’s much more reason to believe that pitchers vary their strategy in different base/out contexts than there is to believe that batters do. All pitchers start nibbling more once runners get on base, but some (Glavine and Rueter are the examples often used) are more effective than others in doling out more walks and limiting HRs with runners on.

But, in general, there isn’t a whole lot of difference as both wOBA and FIP ignore context. I wouldn’t advocate using WAR (exclusively) to determine the MVP, either.

Danny - November 11, 2009 reply