Rookie of the Year

I am beginning to hear an undercurrent of support for the Ray’s Delmon Young as Rookie of the Year, over our very own Little Big Man. Looking at the numbers, I can find only two areas, both counting stats, that Young has any sort of meaningful edge in:

Home runs: Young 13, Pedroia 8
RBI: Young 93, Pedroia 50

Though Young has more home runs, Pedroia actually has the higher slugging percentage: .442 to .412.

The RBI edge appears large, but Young has hit #5 almost exclusively, while Pedrioa has hit #2 about half the time, and #1 or #9 most of the rest. But here is the most telling statistic: Delmon Young has consumed over 100 more outs than has Dustin Pedroia. That is almost 2 every 3 games! Those extra home runs and rbi’s have come at a very high price.

Now let’s see where Little Big Man has the edge:

OPS: Pedroia holds a huge edge, .823 vs. .730.

Defense: Pedroia plays second base, on the right (more skilled) side of the defensive spectrum and does so at a gold glove level, according to most observers. Young play right field, a left spectrum position, and does so (at best) adequately.

Ranking by position: Among all qualifying AL second basemen, Pedroia ranks third in OPS, only .021 behind the leader (Polanco). Among all qualifying AL corner outfielders, Young ranks dead last, .292 behind the leader (Ordoñez). If you think Ordoñez is too high a standard, consider this: Young is .050 behind J. D. Drew.

It’s really no contest between the two.