Getting Rooked? Or Where Have You Gone Teddy Sizemore?

This year's rookie class was a bumper crop, or rather a Bump Wills crop. (Forgive me.) Eric Hinske of Toronto and Jason Jennings of Colorado won, but there were a handful of good candidates in each league (Baltimore's Rodrigo Lugo and Jorge Julio, Minnesota's Bobby Kielty, Anaheim's John Lackey, Oakland's Mark Ellis, Toronto's Josh Phelps, Montreal's Brad Wilkerson, Cincinnati's Austin Kearns, LA's Kaz Ishii, Atlanta's Damian Moss, The Cub's Mark Prior, Pittsburgh's Josh Fogg, San Fran's Ryan Jensen, and St. Louis' Jason Simontacchi ).

My question is what happens to the anointed two now? Are they guaranteed eternal baseball bliss or will they Joe Charboneau out. Let's take stroll down memory lane to examine the fate of our young ballplayers.

First, let's start with Hinske. Position players hold up pretty well over time. Here is a comparison between a RoY (i.e., Rookie of the Year) in his award-winning year and over his career (through 2001):

                    G     AB     H     R     TB     HR   RBI    BB    SO  HBP   SF   SB   CS   BA  OBP SLUG  OPS Hall All-Stars 
RoY Total       11808  43956  12659  6640  19790  1363  5884  4079  6718  360  326 1125  506 .288 .351 .450 .801
RoY Average       142    530    153    80    238    16    71    49    81    4    4   14    6 .288 .351 .450 .801
Career Total   122755 439683 122875 64715 194850 14914 60793 47798 62643 3116 3784 9154 4209 .279 .352 .443 .795 10    333
Career Average   1479   5297   1480   780   2348   180   732   576   755   38   46  110   51 .279 .352 .443 .795         5

The average RoY can enjoy a decent major-league career with almost the same ratios that he enjoyed in his award-winning year. 10 of 83 have made the made it into the Hall of Fame (with many others surely will follow: Piazza, McGwire, Ripken, Bagwell, Garciaparra, Jeter, Murray, and maybe even Dawson, Canseco, Pujols, and Rose). They have averaged 5 All-Star game appearances over their careers.

Now let's look at the pitchers:

                  G    W    L    IP     H    ER    BB    SO ERA   WHIP Hall All-Stars
RoY Total      1078  363  209  4909  4093  1516  1871  3745 2.78 1.215
RoY Average      41   14    8   189   157    58    72   144 2.78 1.215
Career Total   8764 2348 1907 37534 34719 14550 13511 25712 3.49 1.285    1  52
Career Average  337   90   73  1444  1335   560   520   989 3.49 1.285        2

Well, they're certainly not as impressive as the position players. That's to be expected to a certain degree given the volatility of a pitcher's career, but a 90-73 record for an average Rookie of the Year? Their career ERAs are almost three-quarters of a run higher than their Rookie season's. They make on average only 2 All-star appearances over their career, and only one, Tom Terrific Seaver, has been voted into the Hall of Fame (and only Kerry Wood is even an outside chance of getting there). The Rookie of the Year pitcher epitomizes what has always been wrong with pitching coaches over the years. It is peopled by men with young arms that weren't allowed to grow old (Fidrych, Bahnsen, Gooden, and Score (he also had other issues). The average RoY pitcher is personified by John "The Count" Montefusco, who was 90-83 with a 3.54 ERA for his career.

So what does this tell us? If you are gambling on who will have a better career, Hinske or Jennings, go with Hinske any day and twice on Sundays.