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November 11, 2004

Lies, Damned Lies

Superstars, All-Stars and Busts

by Nate Silver

A couple of people have asked me what I think about the selection of Jason Bay, rather than Khalil Greene, as the National League Rookie of the Year. Greene was probably the better selection from a sabermetric standpoint. He out-VORPped Bay, 37.8 to 32.3, and out-WARPed him 6.0 to 5.1. There are legitimate gripes that the writers did not take the offense-deadening effects of PETCO Park sufficiently into account, and might have neglected Greene's strong finish.

Nevertheless, the two candidates were fairly close. Bay missed more playing time than Greene did, which accounted for some of the difference in VORP. He probably has more star potential than Greene does, though we'll see what PECOTA has to say in a month or two; slow middle infielders like Greene tend not to age very well. The writers have certainly made bigger mistakes, and at the very least, it's hard to chalk this particular one up to some sort of newsprint-fueled hubris; Internet Baseball Awards participants also preferred Bay by a small margin.

The more interesting comparison isn't between Bay and Greene, but between Bay and Bob Hamelin. Both are slow power hitters who reached the big leagues relatively late. Bay hit 24 doubles and 26 homers in his rookie year; Hamelin hit 25 doubles and 24 homers, albeit in a strike-shortened debut. Bay hit .282 on the season. Hamelin also hit .282. Even their sabermetric stats are similar; Hamelin's 5.4 WARP3 score is just a hair away from Bay's 5.1. Does being a Rookie of the Year winner increase a player's chance of success in the future, or does it jinx him?

The Rookie of the Year award has been given out 116 times, from its inception in 1947 through today, including split ballots in 1976 (NL) and 1979 (AL, a memorable dead heat between Alfredo Griffin and John Castino). I went through each winner, excluding Bay and Bobby Crosby, and placed them into one of five broad categories:

• Superstar (18). The player had a Hall-of-Fame caliber career, and was one of the very best players at his position for a long period of time. He had at least a couple of seasons in which he was one of the best players in his entire league.

• All-Star (26). The player was one of the very best players at his position for a short period of time, and had a career of reasonable length, or was significantly better than average at his position for a long period of time. He made several All-Star teams.

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