Idiots Write About Sports

Until the Baseball Writers Association of America starts handing out postseason award votes to guys with Weblogs, I don’t have much of a say in the American League Rookie of the Year voting. But I do know who shouldn’t win the award — the guy who, in all likelihood, will wind up winning.

My opposition to Hideki Matsui taking home the hardware has nothing to do with the fact that a 29-year-old man with eight professional seasons under his belt is not, in the strictest sense of the word, a “rookie.” Major League Baseball long decreed that any first-year player qualifies as a rookie, whether he’s a wet-behind-the-ears rube from the sticks or a three-time MVP of the Japanese Central League. If Baseball wants to pretend that a player who spent last season with the Yomiuri Giants is at the same professional level as someone who just got the call from the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, who am I to tell Bud Selig differently?

No, the problem with Matsui winning the award is that, if he does become Rookie of the Year, it will be because of how he started, not how he finished.

Matsui established his Rookie-of-the-Year credentials early on, driving in 21 runs in the month of April (22, if you throw in the one game the Yankees played in March), despite a .255 average. Clearly, here was a player who spent April coming through in the clutch, bunching his hits when runners were on base. A June 27-June 29 series against the Mets — with the New York-centric media paying extra close attention to any subway series, even if it features a terrible Mets squad — added to the Matsui buzz. He went 9 for 15 with 9RBIs in the four-game set (one of those games was a cross-town doubleheader), capping off a June where he drove in 29 runs and tallied an OPS of 1.157 (.484 OBP, .673 slugging). As June ended, Matsui’s OPS reached .824 with his average hovering at .300.

And since then, his season has gone largely downhill.

From July 1 through yesterday’s game with Toronto, Matsui has gone 54 for 206 (a .262 average), with a slugging percentage of .407. He’s driven in 30 runs — only one more than all the RBIs he tallied during June. His OPS has slid steadily since June 30, dipping below .800 on August 28 and holding at .789 going into tonight’s game. For the season, Matsui’s relevant numbers are .286/.349/.440 with 15 homers and 92 RBI. Impressive stats for a rookie — even a rookie in name only — but numbers that are inflated by pre-July accomplishments.

I know that games in April count exactly the same in the standings as games in August. But it seems to me that when you evaulate how a rookie performed during a season, you should give the nod to a player who improved as the year progressed over one who started out hot and tailed off. Matsui could still find a second wind, but as of today, a Rookie-of-the-Year win would be more a reflection of the city he plays in and the way he began the year than how he performed from start to finish.

So who would I vote for? Well, of all the American League rookies I’ve watched this year, Mark Teixeira of Texas has impressed me the most. Then again, Baseball Prospectus notes that Teixeira’s lack of plate discipline is overshadowing his power numbers right now and that he had best correct that if he hopes to make any Rookie-of-the-Year noise (the relevant portion of the article is at the very bottom of the page). Teixeira seems a better candidate for an honor championed by ESPN.com’s Jim Baker: Most Likely to Succeed, or the player who will still be around 15 years from now.

Back to that Baseball Prospectus article… it shows a rookie with better numbers than Matsui who also happened to get better as the season went along. Looks like that as of the fourth day of September, your American Rookie of the Year should be Angel Berroa.

I'd say that anyone who doesn't pick Berroa for ROY has lost all credibility, but the BBWAA lost all credibility on these awards years ago.