National League Rookie of the Year (merged with SmartBall's tulo thread and craigharmann's "Braun and Yo for ROY?" thread)

[Paul77]

Team Canada, you read my mind. I just spent the last hour going through box scores and game logs and even skimming the archives looking at the losses that Braun had an error in. Nice list.

[RobertR]

FWIW, Tulowitzki is ahead of Braun in WPA. I'm not convinced one way or the other about the value of WPA, but it's something to consider.

 

Robert

[Fatter than Joey]

Link to rest of story

4. NL Rookie of the Year (how I'd rank 'em with my nonexistent vote)

Troy Tulowitzki (.291/.359/.470, 20 HR, 81 RBIs, 19.6 win shares): I'm as shocked as you are. The big difference maker between Tulowitzki and Braun, though, is their glovework. Tulo plays the toughest position on the diamond at short, and he might be the best in the league at doing it. Braun plays the less-demanding third base, and even the most charitable descriptions would rate him as pretty damn bad. The numbers bear it out too: Tulowitzki gets credit for 8.9 defensive win shares, to just 1.3 for Braun. It kills me not to pick Braun, who's quickly become one of my favorite players. But the numbers don't lie.

Ryan Braun (.325/.369/.641, 30 HR, 79 RBIs, 18.1 win shares): It's scary to think what he might've done if he got the starting job out of spring training, instead of around Memorial Day. Prorated over 162 games, Braun would project to 51 homers and 135 RBIs. He'd be ahead of Tulowitzki on this list too, even after accounting for the huge gap in the two players' defensive value

[Team Canada]

Team Canada, you read my mind. I just spent the last hour going through box scores and game logs and even skimming the archives looking at the losses that Braun had an error in. Nice list.

 

baseball-reference.com is your friend. I just pulled up each box, checked for errors, checked for Braun errors, and then skimmed the game log to figure out what happened in that inning. Wasn't too horrible.

[brettac1]

There are other very bad things about errors (and just misplays in general, of which Braun has many) aside from runs scoring in that inning. The extra number of pitches the pitcher has to throw in that inning could very well have a negative impact in his performance the next inning or three innings down the road.

 

Tulo is soooo good defensively that he almost has to be a serious contender for the award, and apparently Jonah Keri gives it to him at this point, as well. Defense is extremely underrated by sportswriters (not to mention most fans, also), though, so I don't see Tulo winning it.

[rluzinski]

Every defensive play that's not made (whether it should have been or not) costs about .8 runs on average and 10 runs = 1 win. What we'd need to look at is the number of plays made per opportunity above or below an average defender at his position Bruan and Tulo are at right now. From that, you can convert to runs and then wins. Of course, people aren't really concerned with the average values but the actual results. Team Canada has a nice start but ignores all non error plays (for obvious reasons).

 

Defense has a lot of value (I bet Suppan and Cappy agree with that right now).

[UeckerAddict]

Tulowitzki is an amazing defensive player, possibly the best SS in the NL behind Adam Everett. And it does make a difference that he's an SS, as Russ mentioned.

 

Even with that Braun is better than him, and I'd expect him to win the award quite easily, even with the politicking that guys like Ringolsby will do on behalf of Tulo. I'm just really glad that both of the guys that I wanted the Brewers to draft in '05 have turned out to be excellent players.

 

I would have to say that Omar Vizquel is one of the 2 best I've seen in my life (along with the Wizard). By the way, love the D. Boon pic and the Minutemen quote. One of my top 5 bands all time.

[brettac1]

I would have to say that Omar Vizquel is one of the 2 best I've seen in my life (along with the Wizard). By the way, love the D. Boon pic and the Minutemen quote. One of my top 5 bands all time.

Vizquel definitely was a great one, but his fielding (as one would expect) has slipped as he has gotten older. He's still pretty good, but I would put Tulo, Everett, and Reyes above him, to name a few at this point.

And Minutemen are definitely great.

[endaround]

Vizquel still leads the league in RZR among qualified players, though its basically a tie with Reyes who has a better out of zone rating.

[brettac1]

Tulo's OOZ is ridiculous - 78, compared to Reyes at 50 and Vizquel at 40.

 

For what it's worth, Bill Hall was actually #1 last year at SS with 66 plays made OOZ (Hardy is at 58 currently), but Everett was clearly #1.

[endaround]

How much does Colorado use the shift though? Thats why the Brewers get such high OOZ marks (that and the fact Hall was one of the best I've ever seen going into the outfield for shallow flies).

[brettac1]

That's a good question. There's not really anyone in my division that sticks out as someone you would do the dramatic shift on, aside from possibly Adrian Gonzalez and Bonds. I think even so, having that much higher of a number of out of zone plays probably can't be completely explained by the shift alone.

[RightFieldCoder]

The prevailing notion that young Tulo is getting less national attention because of our time zone or because the Rockies aren't big winners...

Yes, because being one hour behind the Brewers hurts you so much. I guess they do have a lot of games on the coast, but it isn't like we're in NY or Bos.

 

...or because the Rockies do not have the proper general pedigree

Because when you say premiere baseball team of the National League, everyone thinks Milwaukee Brewers. I guess all of our pennants hanging from the rafters scare them off. I guess he doesn't realize that in 14 years they've been to the playoff as much as the Brewers have in 37 years.

[wildbobu]

First, Tulo is playing gold glove caliber defense at a prime position, in which he has been durable and played everyday from the beginning of the year. To me, playing the from day one is more impressive then Ryan Braun getting up to the Bigs and getting hot, he will cool down.

 

Ah when does this guy expect Braun to cool down? Not much time left for that.

Secondly, Braun's stats compare favorly to Pujols rookie year and I can't imagine anyone voting aginst him that year. All defense aside and amount of games played aside Braun has put up one of the best rookie years ever offensivly and that will be very hard to ignore.

 

(clarified quote -TC)

[Fatter than Joey]

All defense aside and amount of games played aside Braun has put up one of the best rookie years ever offensivly and that will be very hard to ignore.

 

At the end of the day I am sure you are right.

 

Really though, Tulo is having an amazing campaign as well, and probably wins in a lot of other years.

[homer]

It wouldn't be surprising to see Tulo out do Braun in WARP because Braun just is that bad. Now WARP has problems. For example shifts can cause havoc, which I think is why Fielder went from being below average last year to horrendous this year.

BP got it's defensive stats working again.

 

Braun 3.9

Tulo 7.4

 

For comparison sake:

Hart 5.9

Fielder 6.1

David Wright 9.5

Hanley Ramirez 7.6

Chase Utley 8.2

ARod 10.1

[brettac1]

Wow, I didn't think Braun would take that huge of a hit. Eighteen runs below average according to RAA2. Tulo, on the otherhand, is 25 runs above average according to that metric. That's almost 4.5 wins. Wow.

 

This means we can't even go all stathead on the guy and be like "You idiot, look at their WARP3's, you uninformed moron."

[Ennder]

Wow, I didn't think Braun would take that huge of a hit. Eighteen runs below average according to RAA2. Tulo, on the otherhand, is 25 runs above average according to that metric. That's almost 4.5 wins. Wow.

 

This means we can't even go all stathead on the guy and be like "You idiot, look at their WARP3's, you uninformed moron."

 

You could point out the road splits, Tulo is David Eckstein on the road.

[Fatter than Joey]

BP got it's defensive stats working again.

 

What is Weeks #? -- I couldn't find it on the site

[brettac1]

11 runs above replacement, 3 below average, using RAR.

[homer]

Weeks WARP1 is 3.5

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/dt/weeksri01.php

[Fatter than Joey]

So Braun is closer to Weeks than to Tulo. Wow.

[Katuluu]

Is it really that suprising? Tulo is Gold Glove candidate, while Braun and Weeks could only wish to be.

[Fatter than Joey]

I guess I am surprised they are that close. I realize that they both suck defensively -- I guess I thought Braun would be closer to Tulo than to Weeks.

[homer]

Yeah, but Kat that metric is not defense only. It's Wins Against Replacement Player - which encompasses offense and defense. I agree with End that this stat has it's problems but it's still surprising that despite Braun's offensive prowess he's still closer to Weeks in terms of offense + defense than he is to Tulo.