With the photo-finish of an NL Rookie of the Year balloting, in which Ryan Braun edged Troy Tulowitzki, we wondered if the Rockies’ shortstop had been robbed. But while Tulo bettered Braun in total Win Shares, 25-22, Braun had more Win Shares Above Bench (13-12), so we’re not going to take issue with the voters (though we admit that were Tulowitzki a Cardinal — now there’s an idea! — we’d probably be up all night trying to make a convincing statistical case for him). Instead, we thought we’d look back at some of the top rookie seasons in Cardinals history by Win Shares since 1949, the first year that the NL ROY was named. As a reminder, to qualify for rookie status, the player must not have had 130 career ABs, pitched 50 innings or spent 45 days on MLB roster (excluding September). ROY winners are highlighted.

It should come as no surprise that Albert Pujols’s 2001 campaign is tops, what with a Win Share total that a lot of very good players never even attain to in their entire career. Scattered among those top seasons are six ROYs: Wally Moon, Bill Virdon, Bake McBride, Vince Coleman, Todd Worrell and Pujols (and the team has had at least seven former ROYs eventually play for them, who are listed in the comments).

Close but no cigar
In addition to those actual Rookies of the Year, the Cardinals have had several more players in the running, including a few runners-up. Cardinals receiving votes for ROY (by place finish):

Haddix loses to Gilliam (1953): Back in 1953, the Cardinals’ future looked bright, as three of their rookies received votes for ROY, Harvey Haddix (who had the second-best Cardinal rookie campaign ever), Ray Jablonski and Rip Repulski. The Kitten, who finished 17th in the MVP voting as a rookie, was perhaps the more deserving: He racked up 27 WS to Junior Gilliam’s 25. Sadly for the Cardinals, the ‘fifties were a lost era, partly because they traded all three players shortly afterward (and lost several other good young players from the first list). They dealt Haddix, who would go on to pitch one of the best games in history, and Jablonski after two years, along with another talented youngster, pitcher Jerry Staley, to the Reds for Frank Smith, who pitched all of 39 inning in St. Louis.

Hughes plays second-fiddle to Seaver (1967): The Franchise of the Mets, Tom Seaver, broke into the bigs with 21 WS in 1967, but Cardinal phenom Dick Hughes wasn’t far behind with 18 WS. Hughes even received votes for MVP, helping lead the Cardinals to a championship. It’s hard to make a case that Hughes should’ve gotten ROY over Tom Terrific, though: Besides Seaver’s edge in WS, he also had a slightly better VORP, 43.2 to 39.7. Regrettably for St. Louis fans, Hughes never returned to his rookie dominance and was out of baseball after the 1968 season.

Morris ties for second (1997): Matty Mo broke onto the scene like Hughes, but tied with Livan Hernandez for second place in the ROY (and of course went on to more success than Hughes). The winner, as astute Cardinals (and Phillies) fans will recall, was Scott Rolen. Rolen was the undisputed winner, as he tore up the league both with his bat and his glove (5.9 Fielding WS) and produced 29 WS total. But Morris, with 16 WS, needn’t have shared second with Hernandez, who had only 8 for the upstart Marlins.

Ankiel is runner up to Furcal (2000): Rick Ankiel, back when he was earning Pitching Win Shares, finished second in the voting to the Braves’ 22-year-old shortstop, Rafael Furcal. Furcal earned 17 WS that year, and Ankiel had 14 WS, 0.5 of which were Batting WS (compare to 7.6 Batting WS in 2007 in just 190 performance-enhanced plate appearances).

Did you know?
Aaron Miles finished 4th in the 2004 NL ROY, ahead of Colorado teammate Matt Holliday.

This entry was posted by Pip on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 2:19 pm and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.