Buster Posey Wins NL Rookie of the Year award

The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) has spoken, and Buster Posey is National League Rookie of the Year. Posey is the first Giant to win the award since John “The Count” Montefusco took the honors in 1975.

I would first off like to say that Jason Heyward was as deserving as Buster for the NL Rookie of the Year award. He had an absolutely phenomenal season at age 21, and had he not injured himself midseason which 1) made him lose time and thus reduced his overall counting stats and 2) pulled down his peripherals such as slugging percentage and on-base percentage when he was playing hurt, he likely would have won the award.

I’d also like to congratulate Yasushki Kikuchi of Kyodo News in Los Angeles for leaving Posey off of the ballot completely – he voted 1) Gaby Sanchez, 2) Jason Heyward and 3) Jaime Garcia. I’m not sure if it was a Dodgers bias or pure lack of imagination, but either way this is pretty ludicrous, Of course, the fact that Posey missed a lot of time due to “seasoning” in the minors is defensible. It won’t win you the case, but the jury might at least order lunch while deliberating.

Along the same twisted lines, Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette left off Jason Heyward when he voted 1) Buster Posey, 2) Neil Walker and 3) Jose Tabata – the latter two both Pirates. It’s not a terrible thing, in theory, to show the players you cover a little bit of love by giving them some votes in the award balloting. For example, Andy Baggarly gave a tenth place vote to Jeremy Affeldt in 2009 in the MVP balloting after his ERA, holds and the like seemed to indicate Affeldt had had an excellent season. As it turns out, Affeldt was exceedingly lucky but you can see why Baggs threw him a bone. But, in the RoY balloting you can only vote three times, and so the second and third place votes definitely count and do add up to the point that they can impact the result of the voting. I think Dejan was a little overzealous here, to put it mildly. There’s nothing defensible here.

And as long as the writers are making the call on the awards, we’ll continue to see perplexing votes such as abovementioned examples. Luckily, the end result was sound in this case.

What most likely brought Posey the hardware over Heyward were the usual subjects (read statistics). Voters tend to focus on batting average, home runs and runs batted in. Posey tied Heyward with 18 home runs, his RBI total of 67 trailed Heyward by just 5 and he handedly bested Heyward’s average by hitting .305 while Heyward finished at .277. What’s more, Posey certainly got some extra points for being a catcher*. This is the “traditional” statistics argument for Posey.

*Buster only caught about 75% of the games he played, because he was splitting time with Molina (at best) until Bengie was traded away to Texas on July 1st.

A lot of the sabermetric community preferred Heyward over Posey, but ultimately agreed neither would be a bad choice. My personal opinion was pretty much split. I wouldn’t have been bothered so long as either Heyward or Posey won, though I was certainly pulling for Posey.

Jason Heyward had an outstanding season. Most impressive was his walk rate of 14.6% and .393 OBP, which are truly great for any player let alone a rookie. His .456 slugging percentage wasn’t terrific but was plenty good enough when coupled with his on-base percentage, making his OPS .849 and propelling his weighted on-base average to a stellar .376. But as is often the case with a very high walk rate – not including freaks like Bonds, Pujols and Mauer – along with it came a lot of punch outs. Heyward struck out nearly 25% of the time, but I fully expect him to improve in this category as he learns each pitcher’s out pitch and specifically how they are trying to put him away.

On top of his top-notch offensive debut, Heyward played quality defense in right field as measured by most advanced statistics. Fangraphs had his UZR decently above average at 4.8, bringing his total Wins Above Replacement (WAR) to 5.0. That’s enough to make him a great choice for RoY as one of the better all around players in the league, already, but in 2010’s crowded voting it wasn’t enough to earn him the award.

Buster Posey showed up on May 29th, started hitting immediately and never really stopped. In July, he completed a 21-game hitting streak and won Player of the Month honors. This explosion came on the heels of Giants’ GM, Brian Sabean, unloading the San Francisco’s catcher of the past few years, Bengie Molina, and paving the way for the Giants’ run for the postseason – and how can we forget, an eventual World Series Championship – with Buster as the fulltime backstop.

When all was said and done, Posey hit .305 with a .357 OBP and .505 SLG (.862 OPS). He trailed Heyward in on-base percentage pretty considerably, so his wOBA – which attempts to properly weight each hitting outcome and weights on-base percentage higher than slugging – was lower at .368. Posey played the much more difficult position of catcher and gets credit for that too. He threw out 37% of would-be base stealers, a very solid percentage and light years better than Molina. Overall, Fangraphs considered Posey to be 3.9 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), a very strong number considering his almost June promotion.

Though the writers couldn’t have known what Posey or the Giants would do in October – and one unforgettable, glorious day in November – it seems a fitting end to the Giants’ (and Posey’s) season.

On May 29, 2010, the Giants finally brought up Gerald “Buster” Dempsey Posey. Bay Area fans believed (and hoped) Posey would be the savior for an offense that wasn’t doing much, and he wouldn’t disappoint – though he’d have some help along the way. Thanks Pat “the Bat” Burrell. Posey was drafted fifth overall in the 2008 draft coming out as a Golden Spikes award winner from Florida State. He was also given a huge $6.2 mil bonus. Since his professional debut, he’d been steeping in the minors – with the exception of a regrettable 2009 call-up that included rotting on the bench – to the tune of: .333 AVG, .427 OBP, .542 SLG and .995 OPS. He’d walked 98 times to just 102 strikeouts and thrown out 45% of would-be base stealers.

In his 2010 debut, he went 3 for 4 and drove in 3 runs. He played a pretty good first base – making more than one great play with his arm – and a little catcher until, on July 1, the Giants shipped Molina to Texas. Posey responded by ripping off a hard 21-game hit streak, blistering balls all over the diamond and hitting .417 with a .466 OBP, .699 SLG, .1.165 OPS, and 7 home runs. He suddenly wasn’t just a compliment to the lineup; he was literally the heart of it and batting cleanup

In September, Posey caught the hottest staff in baseball. In fact, the Giants’ pitchers weren’t just hot, they were historic. In 232.1 innings, they had a 1.78 ERA, a 4.03 strikeout to walk ratio, and held opponents to a minute .524 OPS. Remarkably, they went just 18-8. Also in September, they went 23 straight games giving up 4 runs or fewer, tying the second longest streak since 1920. Posey also hit 8 home runs between September and the 3 games in October. The eighth was a solo shot in the eighth inning of the final game of the season, extending the Giants lead to three runs and all but finishing off the Padres with Wilson warming. Soon after, he caught the final strike as Will Venable couldn’t connect and charged the mound to jump into Wilson’s arms. I believe that moment was a lasting image for Rookie of the Year voters.

Eight days later, October 11th, he ran towards Wilson as they beat the Braves to move on to the NLCS. Twelve days later he ran towards Wilson once more as Ryan Howard stood looking – pun very much intended – and the Giants won the pennant. In that series, he had an epic 4-hit, 2 double night capped by an opposite-field double off of Roy Oswalt after going down 0 and 2. And finally on November 1st, Posey ran towards Wilson one last time in the 2010 season as the Giants clinched their first World Series title in San Francisco history by taking down the AL favorites, the Rangers, an image that was beautifully captured for the cover of Sports Illustrated. One night earlier, he back-spun an outside pitch off of O’Day that, like Giants fans had witnessed a few times before, went and went until it cleared the center field fence.

The Giants have taken home a lot of hardware in San Francisco but never a ring. This year they grabbed a ring and now Posey winning Rookie of the Year honors is simply the cherry on top.

All stats grabbed from Fangraphs.com

Four Teams, Two Spots (and the NL RoY Race)

Buster Posey and Jason Heyward (and Jaime Garcia) are incredible rookies. For the purposes of this post, I’m going to focus on Heyward and Posey. Why? Well, I think they’ve done enough to be considered the top two candidates for the RoY award, and both are still in contention. This will help their chances, right or wrong. Furthermore, if only one of the two makes the playoffs that’s also really going to help either Heyward’s or Posey’s chances. This is still a really possibility, too, though both would get in if play ended at the end of yesterday – but to be fair, the Giants’ lead over the Padres is merely a ½ game advantage having played (and won) an additional game.

Each one of these rookies has been phenomenal in their own right. Heyward has played a nice right field and is hitting for solid average (.286), moderate power (.475 SLG) and is getting on base like a mad man (.401 OBP), something that rookies have rarely done. Buster Posey is hitting for an extremely high average (.324), getting on base at a very nice rate (.373) and hitting for much more power than could have been expected (.522 SLG), both this soon and also in terms of his long term potential. Furthermore, Posey is playing the integral position of catcher, and catching the staff with the best ERA in baseball no less. What’s more, the Giants have amassed an astounding ERA thus far in the pivotal September pennant race. Posey is thus far out OPS’ing Heyward .895 to .876, but this could change within a matter of days. Plus, Heyward has the slight wOBA edge given his higher OBP, 3.85 versus .382.

Counting stats wise, Posey has 15 HR and 61 RBI to Heyward’s 17/71. It should be noted, however, that Heyward has played in 35 more games than Posey (132 versus 97). The RBI’s are not of particular use in my opinion, but rest assured; they’ll be a factor in the voting. Also, Heyward has already struck out 118 times to just 46 for Posey. What I decided to do was to take their respective WAR’s from both Baseball Reference and Fangraphs to determine the relative value they’ve provided to their team. There seems to be consensus about Heyward but less so about Posey – this is common between the two sites as they use slightly different methods to arrive at their WAR figures.

Heyward:
BR = 4.6 WAR in 132 G
FG = 4.6 WAR in 132 G
WAR Average = 4.6

1 W per 29 games played according to Baseball Reference

1 W per 29 games played according to Fangraphs

1 W per 29 games played, average

Posey:

BR = 2.8 WAR in 97 G

FG = 3.9 WAR in 97 G
WAR Average = 3.35
1 W per 35 games played according to Baseball Reference
1 W per 25 games according to Fangraphs
1 W per 29 games played, average

Isn’t this interesting? On a per game basis, if we give 50% weight to baseball reference’s and 50% to Frangaphs’ figures, Posey and Heyward have provided the exact same WAR on a per game basis with 1 win every 29 games. Heyward has provided more cumulative WAR because he’s played in more games. My conclusion is this: Right now it’s more or less a dead heat. The voters are going to focus on counting stats and batting average. They are also going to put a great deal of weight on where their teams ended the season, in postseason or at home watching. Both of these players will have a great deal to do with how their teams finish. Still, they could both play horribly and both still get in, or both play phenomenally (a word that suits them both) and it end up that neither the Braves nor Giants get in. But this seems unlikely to me. In my humble opinion, if there was ever a year where a Co-NL Rookie of the Year award was appropriate, it would be 2010 with all the talent that has flushed the league this season. There’s probably (if not certainly) no right or wrong answer. I won’t hesitate to say it should be Posey – a biased opinion no doubt – but they’re singing a different tune down south, and have been so since their guy started breaking windshields in Spring Training. The fact that they played one another in the 2005 Georgia AAAA State Championship back in high school only adds to the intrigue.

Playoff Picture …

It’s probably (really) safe to say the Reds and Phillies are in, and there are four teams fighting for the final two spots. Here are the opponents’ average run differentials (OARD), etc. for each of these teams.

Giants (OARD = 0.36), 6 Home 5 Away - @ CHC for 2. Lead division by ½ game, potentially ½ back of WC
Braves (OARD = 28.30), 6 Home 4 Away - @ PHI for 1. Trail division by 5 games, 1 game up in WC
Padres (OARD = 19.33), 7 Home 5 Away - @ LAD for 2. Trail division by ½ game, 1 game back in WC
Rockies (OARD = 21.50), 6 Home 6 Away - @ AZ for 2. Trail division by 2 ½ games, 3 ½ games back in WC

The Giants have themselves in nice position. For one, they currently lead the division. Also, they are only ½ back from the Braves (and zero in the loss column), which is another path to the playoffs should SD or COL catch them. That being said, position means nothing if they don’t play well and continue to pitch great while praying for a few runs.