Ryan Braun’s Rookie of the Year in the National League appears to be a victory for fantasy baseball and a body blow to the credibility of the Baseball Writers Association of America panel.

Seventeen writers picked Braun first and Colorado shortstop Troy Tulowitzki second, allowing Braun to win by two points. Although every voter has the right to vote for whomever he or she chooses, the outcome indicates that defense must mean nothing.

Tulowitzki, in his first full season, simply became the best defensive shortstop in the National League. Among those who played in 50 or more games, he led with a .987 fielding percentage and, much more important, handled 834 chances. That’s 117 more balls than Jimmy Rollins got to, despite Rollins’ impressive range, and 144 more than San Diego’s Khalil Greene.

Braun’s fielding percentage at third base for Milwaukee was a dismal .895, and he led NL third basemen with 26 errors, even though he played only 112 games. Miguel Cabrera of Florida booted 23 balls in 152 games, and Washington’s Ryan Zimmerman made 23 Es in 161. Scott Rolen of St. Louis played the same number of games as Braun and had 73 more chances.

Braun was routinely lifted defensively by the Brewers, even though they desperately needed a bat that slammed 34 homers with 97 RBIs and had a .634 slugging percentage.

But Tulowitzki was a producer, too. He was fourth among NL shortstops in OPS (.836) and was their leader with 99 RBIs.

Forget the fact that the Rockies made the playoffs and Milwaukee didn’t, or that Tulowitzki took over the leadership role ofPick of Braun as NL’s top rookie is indefensible the Rockies, just two years removed from Long Beach State. There’s little question Tulowitzki was the better player, which is not a synonym for hitter.

Some newspapers ban their writers from voting for these awards because they fear the writer becomes “part of the story.” The writers’ response to such a silly procedure is to say that someone has to vote for these awards, and why shouldn’t it be the people who are in the press box every night? A myopic vote like this, and some other ones in recent years, undermines that argument.

– Mark Whicker, The Orange County Register

To see how the voting went for NL and AL rookies of the year, click here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 13th, 2007 at 9:22 am and is filed under Mark Whicker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.