Braun, Pedroia ROY's

[trwi7]

Braun finished with a fielding percentage below .900. That's unfathomably bad. Go ahead and say fielding percentage doesn't mean anything and then realize that every single objective measure of his defense says it was without question the worst in the majors and probably in quite a while.

Defense matters. A lot.

Wonderful. Who said defense didn't matter? I'm saying that the vote was closer because Braun was so bad defensively. If he was even average I don't think it would have been a contest.

[Bleeding Green]

Nobody said it. I said it mattered and that Braun was historically awful at third.

[ReasonablySober]

He was also historically amazing at the plate.

[wigglestrue]

He also played at one of the most hitter friendly parks in the majors. He had a .720 OPS away from Coors.

Every Rockie had an absurd home/road split, e.g. while Tulowitzki's OPS was .200 higher at Coors, Holliday's OPS was .300 higher. But like I'm sure you've heard others say before and either you just don't get it or you don't want to get it...it's not just because of Coors, it's also the fact that they play in the NL West, home to a higher concentration of MLB's best pitchers and best pitcher's parks. Tulowitzki's OPS+ was still a robust-for-a-SS 108. You can't knock Tulowitzki's bat. He had a historically good offensive season for a rookie shortstop. He also had one of the greatest defensive seasons for a shortstop in baseball history.

[trwi7]

Yes part of it has to do with him playing in the NL West and the pitchers in that division as evidenced by his .629 OPS on the road against the NL West and .788 OPS on the road against the NL East and Central which is well above average for a SS.

But what Braun did offensively is more impressive than what Tulo did imo. He had a .634 SLG% which was behind only A-Rod at .645 and an all-time record for a rookie and he led all rookies in homeruns despite being called up May 25th.

As I said before if Braun would have played even average defense this would have been a runaway, since he was so awful at 3rd it become the closest race ever.

[Ayt]

Braun had the 6th highest SLG by a 23 year old in baseball history behind only Mays, Pujols, York, Williams, and Trotsky.

Fielder also cracked the top 10 all time for 23 year olds finishing 8th. Pretty impressive stuff, IMO.

[MHZ]

As much as I'd like to, I'm not going to get into another Tulo/Braun debate. I saw this coming for quite some time, and Tulo can hang his hat on anchoring the defense with the highest fielding percentage in history, and winning the NL. I'm sure he'd take that over a ROY trophy.

[denvers_finest]

Just some thoughts.

Braun and Tulo are very differnt players, so its hard to compare the two. One is a great offensive player the other a great defensive player.

I look at it like this, call Tulo's defense equal to Braun's offense.

So compare Braun on Defense to Tulo on offense. Tulo is a much better offensive player (99 RBIs, 24HRs, .291 avg) than Braun is a defensive player (26 errors, .895 feilding %).

Tulo is the better all around player, and should have won, IMO.


Some fun with numbers....

Braun had 26 errors in only 113 games (and only 248 chances)
Tulo had 11 errors in 155 games (and 834 chances)

To put that in perspective, Braun would have had 36 errors if he played in as many games as Tulo. He would have had 39 errors if he played in all 162 games, and he would have had 87 errors if he had as many chances as Tulo. Thats right 87!!!

I thought since people are so quick to say how great Braun's offensive numbers would have been if he was called up earlier, it might be fun to see how high some of his other numbers might have been

[Scrub Sura]

Braun had a great year at the plate, but I think we call all agree that Tulowitzki is the better player overall.

No matter how horrific Braun was in the field, he had better offensive stats and that's something people will always look to vote accordingly without fully researching.

While the vote was close, Tulowitzki was still hurt as the voting ballots were due by mid-September. If they actually waited until the end of the season, I think he would've edged Braun out like he should have in the first place.

Still doesn't explain his snub of a gold glove....I really can't figure that one out

As for Braun, good for him. I wonder what Milwaukee will do with him in the future as 1B is locked up with Fielder. The only plausible avenue is OF as I see him becoming more and more of a liablity at 3B.

[Ruben Douglas]

First, I'm a Cubs fan. I'd love to see either of these players in a Cubs uniform.
That being said, the only reason defense is being brought up is because Braun was just that bad...if he was average we wouldn't even be talking about it.
Since when does defense matter in these types of votes? When looking at MVP how often do players get votes because they are better defensively? If it happens, I've never heard of it.
We all know that these awards are based on offensive production.
From what I've seen Braun is the superior offensive player. Tulo is great for his position, you can't debate that, and honestly both were deserving of this award.
But when it comes down to it, what does this award really mean? Nothing.
Hell, I gave up on the ROY voting when Sabo won it over Grace in '88.

[wigglestrue]

While the vote was close, Tulowitzki was still hurt as the voting ballots were due by mid-September. If they actually waited until the end of the season, I think he would've edged Braun out like he should have in the first place.

Huh? Ballots were due on the last day of the season.