Why No Love for Rasmus?
November 17th, 2009 | Published in Awards, Daniel Gettinger, baseball | 9 Comments
by Daniel Gettinger
The Rookie of the Year awards were announced yesterday. In the National League, Chris Coghlan of Florida won the award. He was followed by J.A. Happ, Tommy Hanson, and Andrew McCutchen.
My personal picks, which I posted a few weeks ago had McCutchen winning the award, with Hanson, and Colby Rasmus right behind him. While much has already been written about the McCutchen/Coghlan debate, I was surprised to see that Rasmus, my third place pick, garnered so little support amongst actual voters. He received only one total point in the voting.
I think the reason Rasmus was overlooked by the voters is that so much of his value comes from playing a premium position, playing good defense at that position, and running the bases well. Rasmus’s batting average of 0.251 pales in comparison to Coghlan’s 0.321 mark. He also trails Coghlan in some of the more advanced stats such as wOBA. Coghlan’s bat was worth about 26 more runs than Rasmu’s this past season, a large and significant difference.
However, Rasmus makes up the difference with the glove. He was worth about 10 runs more than the average center fielder. Meanwhile, Coghlan was 11 runs worse than the average left fielder. Throw in a seven run difference for positional adjustments (based on their actual playing time), and 3.5 run difference for baserunning, and Rasmus actually edges Coghlan (albeit barely, and perhaps insignificantly) in value for the 2009 season.
Chris Coghlan was not a terrible choice for N.L. Rookie of the Year. He just was not my pick. But, the lack of support for Colby Rasmus seems to demonstrate that voters are still underweighting defense, baserunning, and positional scarcity, while overweighing offense.
November 19th, 2009 at 12:04 am (#)
20.7 batting Coghlan
vs
-5.8 batting Rasmus
.372 wOBA
vs
.311 wOBA
1.19 WPA
vs
0.20 WPA
Coghlan was among the best hitters among LF, Rasmus was among the worst in CF.
They both had the exact same WAR of 2.3
Coghlan was an average infielder with above average range in the minors who was playing outfield for the first time this season. He is likely to get better.
Both had 3 assists. So both pretty much have a pop gun of an arm. Juan Pierre like.
17 SB in 153 games at AAA and MLB vs 3 in 147 games at MLB. Coghlan has the superior speed, so the voters were taking into account speed.
I think Rasmus was overlooked because he disappointed so badly with the bat.
November 19th, 2009 at 12:55 am (#)
I don’t have a dog in the Coghlan-McCutchen-Rasmus debate, but Colby Rasmus does NOT have a pop-gun arm. Here’s a smattering of scouting reports:
“A standout pitcher in high school, he owns a strong arm.”
“he has the strong arm that made him a standout high school pitcher.”
“Rasmus has a cannon of an arm. Throwing from center, he was clocked at 94 mph.”
“He’s a plus defender with an above-average arm in center field.”
“his arm is strong enough for right. He was clocked at 91 mph off the mound in high school.”
You can find even more references to his 5-tool ability. Whatever the reason for his relatively low assist total, it has nothing to do with any similarity between his arm and Juan Pierre’s.
November 19th, 2009 at 3:35 pm (#)
If he has such a strong arm then why only 3 assists? He was out there the whole year. Only Hunter had less. Actions speak so much louder than scouting reports. Rasmus is no Adams Jones or Matt Kemp, thats for sure.
November 19th, 2009 at 8:12 pm (#)
ThePadFather, I honestly don’t know much about Rasmus’ arm, but one reason many strong-armed outfielders don’t have many assists is that teams are afraid to run on them.
November 19th, 2009 at 8:56 pm (#)
Assists tell you less about arm strength than RBI tell you about hitting. Saying that assists equal arm strength is like saying that anyone who doesn’t get a speeding ticket doesn’t speed. It’s indicative of no such thing. Assists are dependent on runners (both runners being on, which happens less behind a good staff, and runners trying to advance), other fielders, even umpires.
Albert Belle had a career high of 17 assists in 1999. Five years earlier he managed only 8. The year before that he snagged 16. Are we to believe that his arm strength in 1994 was approximately 50% of what it was in 93 and 99? Andre Ethier, good arm, had 6 assists this year. Juan Pierre, who couldn’t throw a ball through a sheet of seran wrap, beat that in 2005.
As for Torii Hunter, he threw out a lot of runners earlier in his career, and as Myron says, they’ve dwindled because people stopped trying to advance on him. Something similar happened with Larry Walker.
This is simply a case of someone mistaking a number for a physical characteristic.
November 20th, 2009 at 5:14 am (#)
Guys, don’t try to foist that stuff off on me. If you are among the worst in baseball at assists, then you are the among the worst. It shows you DIDN’T make the throws. Rasmus had 130 chances to make assists, but could not get the runners out.
Its not like Rasmus had 6 or 7 and the top guy had 8. Rasmus had 3 and the top guy had 14.
I got to 20 Angels games this season and I can tell you first hand that Torii Hunter’s arm is not any better than Gwynn Jr’s arm today. Its not that people don’t run on him, its that he just doesn’t make the throws anymore. Of Hunter, Rasmus, Jones and Kemp, Hunter had the lowest percentage of runners held. So people were running on him.
Rasmus had the lowest percentage of balls in play that resulted in outs of those 4 too. Rasmus was 9th in % of runners held in baseball. He is an above average, but not top flight fielder at the CF position. Neither is Hunter anymore.
November 20th, 2009 at 8:11 am (#)
No, he didn’t have 130 chances to throw runners out. There were 141 opportunities for runners to go, and 73 of them held. In a sample size of 68 opportunities, anything can happen. Eric Owens can hit .300 in 68-at bats.
I don’t know whether Rasmus is a good defensive CF or not, but I do know he doesn’t have a “pop gun,” Juan Pierre-type arm, as alleged. I also know that assists don’t measure arm strength.
November 21st, 2009 at 8:36 pm (#)
Tom,
It was a full season, not a small sample size. Rasmus had some nice scouting reports and failed to live up to them with his bat his baserunning or his arm.
Its real obvious why he was overlooked on the writers votes.
You can try to argue the points all you want, but the writers didn’t think he did a good job.
As for me, I understand why they didn’t vote for him.
Poor job with the bat.
Among lowest fielding percentages.
Among lowest assists.
Among lower runners held rates.
He didn’t do well amongst CF and Coghlan had a GREAT year with the bat and stealing bases in his first year in the outfield.
Rasmus may rebound and become what everyone thought he would be, or he may go the way of alot of prospects and fade away.
November 21st, 2009 at 9:12 pm (#)
I’m not arguing that Rasmus deserved any more consideration for the ROY than he received. The only point I’ve made is that you can’t extrapolate a “pop-gun” arm from a low number of assists. There may be a lot of reasons why he didn’t throw many runners out, but arm strength isn’t one of them.