Bleed Cubbie Blue

I guess.

An .850 OPS is certainly, uh, meaty. And a .372 wOBA is very nice. But Coghlan put up awful UZR numbers – in left field, no less. And his WAR was actually lower than Randy Wells’ – 2.3 vs. Randy’s 3.0. Just sayin’.

daver - November 16, 2009 reply

Well, as I said...

… I voted for Happ.

Remember, Coghlan had never really played outfield before the Marlins asked him to do so in the major leagues. He’s an infielder.

Yeah, I was expecting Happ to win.

Makes me wonder if many of these writers prefer to “ooh and ahh” over a good offensive player rather than invest the patience and persistance in following pitchers.

daver - November 16, 2009 reply

well given the trends with former Cubs ROY

I’d say I wouldn’t mind that Wells didn’t win it

crap wrong section

i've never even heard of either guy

hm…

Andrew Baily I've heard of. He was on the Al Star team.

I’ve never heard of Coghlan. His stats seem rather pedestrian to me. I thought one of the NL pitchers would win ROY.

Pedestrian?

A line of . 321 / .390 / .460 is pretty good for a rookie. You could argue someone like Happ deserved it more but it’s not like Coghlan didn’t deserve it.

yeah

providing negative defense in LF is impressive… even for a rookie.

and when do any of these awards consider defense?

I would have voted for Happ but saying you never heard of his pedestrian performance is ignoring what was a pretty good rookie season. Cub fans would be drooling at a .390 OBP at the top of the lineup.

The 9 HR's and 47 RBI's seem low for a ROY

who had over 500 AB’s and played in 128 games.

um... he was their leadoff hitter.

ballhawk - November 16, 2009 reply

And only for about 2/3 of the season, at that

madcow256 - November 16, 2009 reply

I'm just not overly impressed.

Maybe he has a tough act to follow. In recent years we’ve seen Ryan Howard, Ryan Braun, Hanley Ramirez and Geovany Soto, all with pretty remarkable rookie seasons.

cowsarecool220 - November 17, 2009 reply

wow...

what part of .321 /.390 /.460 and an OPS+ of 122 in 128 games (565 PAs) batting leadoff for a team in playoff contention until the last week of the season weren’t you impressed with?

And it’s not like he started out strong and then faded. IIRC, he set some kind of ML record with hits for the month of September. And this from his Wikipedia entry

After the MLB All-Star break, Coghlan led all major league players in batting average (.372) and hits (113).

ballhawk - November 16, 2009 reply

It's just my opinion.

Honestly, I don’t recall seeing him play much. After reading a little more about his season, I understand his numbers greatly increased in the last 2 months of the season. Maybe that’s why I’m so unimpressed. To me, that makes him a rookie of the month for August and September. I

‘d prefer the ROY be a player that was outstanding for the entire season. I’d say J.A. Happ and Tommy Hanson fit that description better.

84 runs scored though

I would have thought Wells

would have finished a little higher but I guess it doesn’t matter much if you don’t win. By the way Al, when did the fan shots become available on mobile BCB? In any case, it’s greatly appreciated.

LT - November 16, 2009 via mobile reply

Thanks for the info....

… that must have just been done, because last week someone was asking about FanShots on mobile. I’m glad the tech team was so responsive!

I emailed SBNation asking for it a few months back

Also, Windows 7 was MY idea.

madcow256 - November 16, 2009 reply

watch out for that dude that plays a Mac

in the commercial. He will steal your women…

LT - November 16, 2009 reply

Thanks to you too, Al!

From the noob that asked you.

i like demp - November 17, 2009 via mobile reply

well given the trends with former Cubs ROY

I’d say I wouldn’t mind Wells not getting the award

agreed

LT - November 16, 2009 reply

Very true - I also was plesantly surprised...

Now, if only there was a “mobile Z key” functionality….

eths - November 17, 2009 reply

I found an article with the table

Here it is.

Bill Potter - November 16, 2009 reply

Thanks.

I found that same article an hour ago — it did not have the table at that time.

And, Wells finished sixth, not fifth.

Yeah, I noticed that the article on MLB.com's media wall lacked it initially, too.

Creating tables in articles isn’t that tough, either.

Bill Potter - November 16, 2009 reply

Exactly.

And it’s not like they haven’t had a month to make the table, either.

why does baseball wait so long to announce the awards?

Well...

… they do want to wait till after the World Series.

But they really miss the boat, I think, by not having a televised awards show where they could honor the winners. It would be perfect winter programming for the MLB Network.

why not do it DURING the WS though?

especially with all those ridiculous off-days… it’d be a way to keep attention on baseball instead of waiting until no one cares anymore.

Because Bud doesn't let these things take attention from the WS.

I think a televised awards show in November would get baseball some offseason attention.

Looks like Coughlan won despite only appearing on 25 of 32 ballots.

Makes you wonder if the other 7 guys really deserve to have a vote. Did they even glance at the stats? How can anyone say that there were 3 rookies in the NL better than Coughlan? I understand that since he’s on the Marlins and not a super-hyped prospect, he’s not very well-known – but that’s certainly no excuse.

You don't think Tommy Hanson had a better year than Coghlan?

Not exactly my point

Sure, there’s a decent argument to be made for Hanson as ROY (I’d counter that he only played in 21 games). There’s an even better one to be made for J.A. Happ. But those arguments aside, I would think that almost everyone can agree that Coughlan was at least one of the top 3 rookies in the NL this year; it seems pretty strange that seven BBWAA members apparently don’t hold that opinion.

Well...

… I voted for Happ, Hanson and Wells. Granted, Wells was a homer pick for me. I guess I would have put Coghlan fourth, if we had four votes.

Charlie Wilmoth - November 16, 2009 reply

Coghlan was worse than Andrew McCutchen, who played a premium defensive position and played it pretty well. Coghlan’s defense was bad, and I don’t think he should receive any extra points for being a converted infielder. Not that sabermetric stats are the be-all end-all, but by WARP, which includes defense, Coghlan ranked behind McCutchen, Happ, Wells, Hanson… and Garrett Jones and Seth Smith, too. I went Hanson, McCutchen, Happ, and I would’ve put Wells ahead of Coghlan also. I think the 25 people who put Coghlan on their ballots are the ones who need to explain themselves.

Interesting

I hadn’t seen the WARP numbers myself, so I wasn’t aware of that. If his defense really is that bad, perhaps he didn’t deserve to win – but I’d like to hear what someone who actually watched him play everyday has to say about it. Seems like he must be an absolute butcher in the field – does he really look that bad on a regular basis? I’m a bit skeptical that Coghlan was so awful defensively that he’s less valuable than all the guys you listed.

Charlie Wilmoth - November 16, 2009 reply

Well, I think things like WARP and VORP, while very convenient to compare players at different positions, can be tricky figures to evaluate pitchers, since they’re both tied up with team defense. I ended up picking Hanson instead of Happ or Wells because I thought, both from watching and from the numbers, that Hanson was really in control of hitters whereas Happ and Wells, while both pitched well, were depending more on their defenses.

Then again, comparing pitchers to hitters is always tricky. But generally speaking, I’ll take a starter who puts up an ERA around 3 over an outfielder who hits very well but stinks it up with the glove.

I’m a Pirates fan so I don’t watch the Marlins regularly (of course, I doubt most of the voters did either, because nobody does). I saw Coghlan once in person and six or seven times on TV, not really enough to figure out why his defensive numbers are so bad. A lot of bad defensive outfielders aren’t really butchers, they’re guys who have poor range or (for whatever reason) don’t position well. Coghlan is a converted infielder and played practically no outfield in the minors, so he definitely has that excuse for not grading out well… but I don’t think that makes him a better ROY candidate.

If I'm not mistaken, the Marlins were contending.

The Pirates weren’t.

Also, I do not believe the voters value fielding very much. Coghlan was a more valuable hitter, at least according to fangraphs, which puts them at 20.7-16.7.

jesus christos - November 16, 2009 reply

this is ROTY

not MVP

Look at the subtitle on MLB.com

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091115&content_id=7669422&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

“Infielder-turned-outfielder stepped in and sparked Marlins”

I have a feeling it MAY have something to do with him winning…

Cub Style - November 17, 2009 reply

What difference do those things make? I know the voters’ decisions are silly. I’m saying they shouldn’t be.

Charlie Wilmoth - November 17, 2009 reply

Well if they incorporated everything...

Coghlan would have still won because without him the Fish wouldn’t have done so well.

Cub Style - November 17, 2009 reply

I went McCutchen-Wells-Hanson

McCutchen’s stats were very similar to Coghlan’s offensively, but he was a much better fielder and played a bit more. Wells was quite underrated — his K/BB/HR rates were much better than Happ and better than Hanson.

Sky Kalkman - November 17, 2009 reply

Gerardo Parra x x 1 1

who?

jesus christos - November 16, 2009 reply

This guy

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/parrage01.shtml

Yeah, I don’t understand why he got a vote either.

jesus christos - November 16, 2009 reply

oh yeah that guy!

… no wait…

He's not bad.

He’s one of the top Arizona prospects. But he doesn’t really have a high ceiling.

Doggie Stalker - November 16, 2009 reply

Coulda been worse.

Coulda been Manny Parra.

daver - November 16, 2009 reply

Congratulations to Clutch16

Who had Wells beating Rasmus in the ROY voting as the MOST likely event in Ballhawk’s contest and honorable mention to Jkobus who had it at #14. Most of us had it in the tope 5. So what happens next that we can check on this
one ?

Hopefully, Bradley being traded.

Doggie Stalker - November 16, 2009 reply

But Al

I have Bradley starting the season on the 40 man roster as the most likely thing to happen, NOT.

Oh.

Well, I guess you’ll lose, then. Want to bet another Big Gulp?

After last year's debacle

(when Edinson Volquez received votes for an award he wasn’t even eligible for), maybe they’re hesitant to show the full results.

Who cares

Kudos to Bailey and Coghlan. But in the end, it was just a silly award. Beckham and Porcello are examples of two players who will have many times the career of either Bailey or Coghlan.

After all, Pat Listach won the ROY too.

BLou - November 16, 2009 reply

Do you even know how talented Coghlan is?

It’s not like he’s a Wells type guy. He’s been a top prospect for a while. Saying Beckham will be many the times better is just foolish. Coghlan could quite possibly be better.

I do agree on Porcello, the kid is astounding. Not Timmy Lincecum astounding. But none the less astounding.

They got it right

Coghlan was the obvious choice. The kid hit the cover off the ball and didn’t do bad at a position he has never played before, since he came up as a 3B. He will be a top 3B in the MLB for a long time.

At the beginning of the season, I figured the AL would be a toss up between Cahill and Anderson, I picked Cahill because of personal preference. Obviously I picked the bottom of the 3 big rookies in Oakland, although I do believe Cahill had a very unlucky few starts. Stacking up Anderson and Bailey, you could make a case for either, however, Bailey provided consistent dependence out of the pen after Ziegler did not fare well pre-season.

Saying Happ over Coghlan, in my opinion, is not considering the trends of this award. Historically the hitters have the upper hand.

It's pretty ridiculous than Anderson finished 5th

vivaelpujols - November 16, 2009 reply

IMO he should have finished third

Bailey
Andrus
Anderson
Porcello
Niemann
Beckham

Not really

You really could mix up Porcello, Niemann and Anderson into whatever order you wanted based on whatever you stat you preferred. The 3 of them were pretty close.