On the Fox pre-game, Kevin Kennedy said Alexei Ramirez ought to get the AL Rookie of the Year over Evan Longoria because "he plays the infield and has played all year."
Oh dear, that is soooooo bad. Why do I keep getting surprised?
First, Longoria plays the infield. Last I checked third base is as much in the infield as second base.
Second, is it Longoria's fault that he missed 31 games with a bad wrist? It's too bad, and if that means he didn't contribute as much, fine. But if his performance exceeds that of Ramirez, why should the injury alone be a strike against Longoria?
Third -- and this is important -- Longoria has 466 plate appearances. Ramirez, who Kennedy credits for playing "all year" has 470 plate appearances! Longoria missed 31 games with an injury and only has 4 fewer plate appearances!
So Kennedy's rationale: infield and playing time, are essentially equal between the two. His comment is just plain uninformed.
Finally, let's look at performance, which ought to be the true arbiter of the award. Here are the BA/OBP/SLG for the two players:
297/320/483 - Ramirez
281/352/545 - Longoria
A 32 point OBP advantage and 62 point SLG advantage far outweigh Ramirez' 16 batting points advantage. It's the difference between a good 803 OPS for Ramirez and an 897 OPS for Longoria. Using Tango's quick and dirty OPS Wins formula, that's about 6.1 wins for Longoria and 4.3 wins for Ramirez. Based solely on batting.
Let's see what Baseball Prospectus says about their hitting, using Value Above Replacement Player, which relates their batting performances relative to a replacement player at their position:
21.7 - Ramirez
36.3 - Longoria
Wins are equivalent to approximately 10 runs, so BP confirms that the hitting different is around 1.5 wins. (Unlike the OPS wins, this BP measure is wins above replacement, which explains why the absolute numbers are so much lower than the OPS wins).
How about defense? BP says Ramirez has allowed 16 more runs than the average second baseman. Longoria has saved 15 runs above average for his position. (I'm a little surprised Longoria's number is so low...Longoria is one of the best I've seen at third). Anyway, that 31 run swing is a difference of about 3 wins.
Longoria missed 31 games, but has put up better rate numbers, and better cumulative statistics, than Ramirez who Kennedy credits with playing all year. A guy who misses 31 games but contributes about 4.5 wins more than another player, ought to be ahead in the Rookie of the Year race. The missed games are irrelevant, except to make the point about how much further ahead Longoria would be if he had actually been healthy!
Let's hope no one important was listening to Kennedy.
