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The 2003 Sabey Awards Part 1: Rookie of the Year

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am proud to bring you the first annual Sabey Awards, where I pick my winners of MLBs fall awards. The candidates are those suggested by MLB.com's Awards page. I guess these are considered the official candidates, though quite a few of them are borderline at best. Quite frankly, I had to click on the "R. Johnson, TOR" link just to find out that the "R" stood for "Reed". My ignorance to the lesser-knowns notwithstanding, I will attempt to evaluate each player objectively via rudimentary statistical analysis. So, without further ado...

American League

When I think of the AL ROY candidates, the usual names come to mind: Hideki Matsui, Angel Berroa, Jody Gerut. MLB.com evidently needed ten candiates for each award, so we also get Joe Somebodys like Craig Monroe and the aforementioned Reed Johnson. Nevertheless, each player will be given equal consideration, as I attempt to not let my Big-Cityness cloud my objectivity. I am going to compare the hitters to each other and the pitchers to each other, and then decide on a winner based on the results of those comparisons.

The Hitters



Below are the pertinent stats for each hitter...

Player          Age AVG OBP SLG BB  K  XBH HR  AB  R   RBI SB/CS
Rocco Baldelli   22 289 326 416 30 128  51 11 637  89   78 27/10
Angel Berroa     25 287 338 451 29 100  54 17 567  92   73 21/5
Jody Gerut       26 279 336 494 35  70  57 22 480  66   75  4/5
Reed Johnson     26 294 353 427 20  67  33 10 412  79   52  5/3
Hideki Matsui    29 287 353 435 63  86  59 16 623  82  106  2/2
Craig Monroe     26 240 287 449 27  89  42 23 425  51   70  4/2
Mark Teixeira    23 259 331 480 44 120  50 26 529  66   84  1/2

Okay, let's start weeding them out. Craig Monroe, despite his 23 HR and 70 RBI, is just this side of useless. That .287 OBP is downright Rey Ordonez-esque (that is, if you disregard his uncharacteristic 2003 campaign where he hit .316 in 117 AB, albeit with only two walks). His slugging is middle-of-the-pack here, but he's old for a non-Japanese rookie at 26, and shouldn't really be in consideration for this award.

Reed Johnson isn't going to win this award either. His .353 OBP is nice, but is largely contributed to by his .294 AVG. 20 BB in 412 AB is almost as bad as the Baldelli kid.

Speaking of Baldelli, can a brother get a base-on-balls every once in awhile? 30 BB in 637 AB is actually worse than Choppin' Broccoli himself. He did manage to swipe 27 bases, but at the cost of 10 caught-stealing (73%, a bit higher than the break-even point). He's essentially Alphonso Soriano without the power numbers which, as we know, isn't much at all.

To narrow it down to a nice even (odd) three, I'm going to show Mark Teixeira (or as my buddy Steve calls him, Tex-ee-era) the door. His 26 bombs are the most among the candidates, and he has the second-highest slugging among this group, but his .259 AVG and .331 OBP aren't going to cut it with the Beane-counters here.

Jody Gerut outslugged everyone here, besting $7-million-per-year Hideki Matsui by almost 60 points. However, he only reached base 33% of the time.

That leaves us with The Big Two. Hideki Matsui, the heavy favorite to win this award at the onset of the 2003 campaign, and Angel Berroa, who most people hadn't even heard of (myself included) when 2003 kicked off. Berroa bested Matsui in slugging by 15 points, which is not much more than negligible. Berroa stole 21 bases in 26 attemps, which is a terrific 80% success rate. I am not a big fan of the stolen base, but if you can swipe them at an 80% clip, be my guest. Their homeruns were very similar: 17 to 16 in favor of Berroa. Matsui held a big lead in RBI, but that's largely (read: entirely) a product of the Yankees sluggardly sluggers clogging up the bases in front of him. When you have guys like Jason Giambi (.412 OBP) and Jorge Posada (.405 OBP) hitting in front of you, it's not that hard to rack up the ribbies. Matsui gets the edge in OBP by 17 points. While this is similar to Berroa's edge in SLG, OBP is considered to be much more valuable than SLG. The ability to get on base is, quite simply, the ability to avoid making outs. As we know, there is no commodity as precious to a team as outs are.

The Pitchers



I'm not really sure why I'm even looking at these. None of them ever get any press for this award, and it's already almost 3am. But I will forge ahead.

Player             Age  IP   K  BB HR ERA  WHIP K/9  K/BB HR/9
Lance Carter        28  79.0 47 19 12 4.33 1.15 5.35 2.47 1.37
Mike MacDougal      26  64.0 57 32  4 4.08 1.50 8.02 1.78 0.56
Francisco Rodriguez 21  86.0 95 35 12 3.04 0.99 9.94 2.71 1.26


In the race to decide who the best AL pitcher to not win the ROY this year, there are really only two horses here. Lance Carter is basically a bum, and has no business on this list. For that matter, let's make it a one-horse race really quickly. Mike MacDougal had a nice season, with a very good K/9 and a superb HR/9. However, K-Rod was better in almost every category, save HR/9. His WHIP was razor-thin, his K/9 was terrific, and his K/BB was very good as well. Plus, he's only 21, so despite the rest of the Angels team falling off the face of the earth this season, Francisco Rodriguez was far-and-away the best rookie pitcher in the American League.

The Final Answer

This was a harder decision than I thought it would be. For most of this season, I have felt that Hideki Matsui's candidacy was based largely on his overvalued RBI total. Compound this with the fact that I am a Yankee-hater, and I could have very (very, very) easily picked Berroa here. However, I think the correct choice should be Matsui. He demolishes Berroa in BB/K and BB/AB and, despite his questionable eligibility, he is my choice for 2003 American League Rookie of the Year.

2003 Saby Choice: Hideki Matsui
Predicted MLB Winner: Hideki Matsui

National League

As with the American League, I will divide the candidates into Hitters and Pitchers, which will allow for more reasonable comparison. Also like the AL, there are a number of players here who are mainly filler so that MLB could run the list to ten.

The Hitters



While the American League was short on pitching in this race, the Natioinal League is a bit short on hitting. Each of these four guys had nice rookie campaigns, though.

Player          Age AVG OBP SLG BB  K  XBH HR  AB  R   RBI SB/CS
Marlon Byrd     26  303 366 418 44  94  39  7 495  86   45 11/1
Miguel Cabrera  20  268 325 468 25  84  36 12 314  39   62  0/2
Jason Phillips  27  298 373 442 39  50  36 11 403  45   58  0/1
Scott Podsednik 27  314 379 443 56  91  46  9 558 100   58 43/10

One player is clearly the class of this list, and I will get to him in a minute. There are no duds on this list (aka Craig Monroes), as all four of these candidates put up very nice seasons. Miguel Cabrera, a mid-season callup from AA, has by far the highest ceiling, in particular because of his age (he's six years younger than the next youngest player here). He had the highest SLG here, and drove in the most runs of the group, despite having the fewest number of at-bats. However, he had a lot of trouble getting on base, hitting only .268 with an OBP of .325. His walk rate isn't bad considering his age, and he is a potential superstar for the Marlins.

Marlon Byrd looked like a bust two months into the season. He was hitting a Pat Burrell-esque .193 at the end of May, with a pathetic .538 OPS. He turned it around nicely, though, finishing at .303 and .784, respectively. His plate discipline is decent (44 BB in 495 AB), and he made the most of his speed, swiping 11 bases with only one caught-stealing. He didn't hit for much power, but that's somewhat expected from your leadoff hitter.

Jason Phillips was a huge surprise for the Mets. He was called up in mid-May for good, splitting time between catcher and first-base after Mike Piazza tore his groin. He's old for a rook at 27, but he hit just shy of .300, and showed impressive plate discipline, posting the second-highest OBP here at .373. His 11 homers are good for a catcher but shabby for a 1B. All told, his BB rate will probably get better with more experience, but he needs to hit the weight room to add some pop to his bat.

My top choice among the hitters is definitely Scott Podsednik. He had the highest AVG and OBP, hitting .314 and walking just about once every ten at-bats. He was also very successful on the bases, stealing 43 bags in 53 attempts (81% success rate). He scored 100 runs on a lousy Brewer team. He's no pup (27 years old), but he was a pleasant suprise for the Beermakers.

The Pitchers




Player             Age  IP    K  BB HR ERA  WHIP  K/9  K/BB HR/9
Brad Lidge          26  85.0  97 42  6 3.60 1.20 10.27 2.31 0.64
Horacio Ramirez     23 182.1 100 72 21 4.00 1.39  4.94 1.39 1.04
Jeriome Robertson   26 160.2  99 64 23 5.10 1.52  5.55 1.55 1.29
Oscar Villarreal    21  98.0  80 46  6 2.57 1.29  7.35 1.74 0.55
Brandon Webb        24 180.2 172 68 12 2.84 1.15  8.57 2.53 0.60
Dontrelle Willis    21 160.2 142 58 13 3.30 1.28  7.95 2.45 0.73


This is the group that most people expect the Rookie of the Year to come from, with most people putting their money on the D-Train. Before getting to him, lets pare this group down by a few.

The two worst pitchers here are Jeriome "Don't Call me Jerome" Robertson and Horacio Ramirez, particularly Robertson. His ERA was over 5, WHIP was over 1.5, and he gave up a ridiculous 23 taters in only 160.2 innings. I'm not really sure why he's a candidate, other than the obvious fact that he is actually a rookie. His stats are not very good, and he does not project well at all. Ramirez is a similar case, but he strikes me as a league-average pitcher who may be able to stick around simply because he's a lefty. He doesn't strike out a lot of guys, he gives up a lot of walks, and he's prone to the gopherball. He is only 23, but he smacks of Glendon Rusch to me.

Oscar Villarreal pitched well for the D-Backs, but really doesn't compare favorably to Brad Lidge, who can straight-up bring it. This guy was overshadowed in Houston by fireballers Billy Wagner and ex-Met Octavio Dotel, but he's got a cannon of an arm, and projects very well as a dominant closer-to-be. His K/9 and HR/9 are downright silly, and he kept his BB at a manageable level. These are very important, defense-independent stats, that are usually excellent indicators of a pitcher's ability to succeed year-in and year-out. However, it would be tough to give the award to Lidge with the year that another pitcher had.

Dontrelle Willis had a phenom-like first half, posting an ERA of 2.08 while giving up only three homeruns and fanning 79 batters in 82 innings. He was the toast of the town, and the early favorite to win this award. He must have hit a wall sometime in July, though, because he really fell apart in the second half. His 4.60 ERA was more than double his first half mark, while giving up 10 longballs in 78 innings. After soaring out to a 9-1 record at the All-Star break, he notched a mediocre 5-5 down the stretch. So, while his sideways cap and funky delivery were very entertaining, he was not the best rookie pitcher in the National League.

That honor goes to the oft-overlooked Brandon Webb. He bested Willis in almost every important category: IP, K/9, K/BB, HR/9, WHIP, ERA. This matchup wasn't even really close.

So we have our best hitter in Scott Podsednik. We have our best pitcher in Brandon Webb. Who's going to win? Neither of them, but that won't stop me from picking Webb as the Should-Be NL ROY. While Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson spent much of the year on the disabled list (and Johnson spent the rest of the time pitching like Reed Johnson), Brandon Webb was pitching like a #1 starter. I remember his debut as a starter, when he stepped in for the Big Unit to embarrass the Mets to the tune of 10 strikeouts and three hits. I haven't heard him mentioned in any Cy Young discussions, but he is certainly a viable candidate for that award too.

2003 Saby Choice: Brandon Webb
Predicted MLB Winner: Dontrelle Willis

I'll be back tomorrow with my analysis of the American League Cy Young candidates.