Did Adley Rutschman just have the greatest rookie season in Orioles' history?

[Moose Milligan]

WAR!  Good God!  What is it good for?!?!

Putting an end to baseball debates!  Say it again, now!

Know what?  I'm ignoring WAR.  I don't care.  That's right, Froberto Duran, take your rWAR fWAR and whatever else and kick rocks with it.

The answer is Gregg Olson.  Cause without him, the Why Not? team that we all love to reminisce about probably doesn't make it to the final weekend in Toronto as a contender.  And as fun as this past season was and as much as Adley meant to it, backing into a playoff wildcard spot isn't the same as playing for a division title back when winning your division actually meant something.

And since we're on the subject, here's the entire 1989 Orioles highlights video which features him prominently.  Yes, I just ruined any productivity you guys had hoped for on a Wednesday morning.

 

 

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Adley.

Edited November 2, 2022 by Moose Milligan

[DrungoHazewood]

13 hours ago, Frobby said:

And speaking of catchers, Matt Wieters’ 1.4 rWAR/1.1 fWAR rookie year was better than several of the listed players who got ROY votes.  

ROY votes are highly dependent on the candidates that year.  There are years where you have six or eight really strong rookies, and there are years where John Castino gets a trophy for hitting .285 with five homers.

Now you're going to make me go look up the worst players to get a ROY vote...

[Frobby]

19 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

WAR!  Good God!  What is it good for?!?!

Putting an end to baseball debates!  Say it again, now!

Know what?  I'm ignoring WAR.  I don't care.  That's right, Froberto Duran, take your rWAR fWAR and whatever else and kick rocks with it.

I definitely don’t think WAR is the end of the discussion.  I just listed them in that order to begin the conversation.  

I loved watching Olson pitch, and think he’s a defensible choice, though he wouldn’t be my pick.  Kind of amazing that he’s still the Orioles’ all-time saves leader after all these years.   
 

[DrungoHazewood]

In 1970 Larry Bowa got more votes for OPSing .580 than Wayne Simpson got for going 14-3.

Hector Cruz got a few votes in '76 for OPSing .625 and being almost two wins below replacement.

Obviously love Eddie, but how does he win in '77 over Mitchell Page who had an OPS 125 points higher, had a .405 OBP, and stole 42 bases to Eddie's zero?

1980, Ron Oester finished 4th (with a first place vote) for hitting .277 with two homers and six steals.

In 1981 Shooty Babitt got some votes for hitting .256 with a .615 OPS in 54 games, and George Bell for hitting .233/.256/.350 in 60 games.

In 1990 Scott Radinsky pitched 52 innings of relief to a 4.82 ERA and got a vote.

Rich Delucia finished 5th in a deep AL class in 1991 for going 12-13, 5.09 and leading the league in homers allowed.  That same year Brian Hunter was worth -0.2 WAR and was 4th in the NL.

In '92 Eric Karros was 7th among NL vote getters in WAR (0.4) and won the award. .730 OPS as a mediocre-fielding 1B.

Jeff Conine finished 3rd in '93 in the NL with a 0.7 WAR season.  Pedro went 10-5, 2.61 and finished six spots lower.

Chris Gomez was 4th in '94 for being half a win below replacement in 84 games.

Ray Durham was below replacement in '95, finished 6th.

Deivi Cruz, half a win below replacement, .577 OPS, 4th in the AL in '97. Same year Tony Womack was -0.9 WAR got a few votes.  And Jose Guillen was -3.3(!!) WAR and finished one spot behind Vlad, who OPS'd .833.

Ponson got a vote in '98 for going 8-9, 5.27.

That wasn't quite as fun as I'd imagined, so I'm going to stop here.

 

 

[DrungoHazewood]

11 hours ago, Frobby said:

You are right about Brooks’ career having a sputtering start.  He debuted briefly at age 18 in 1955, got another cup of coffee in 1956 and exceeded rookie limits at age 20 in 1957. That year, he played in 50 games, bringing his career total to 71 games.   He was worth 0.4 rWAR, 0.4 fWAR that year.   

Brooks spent all of 1958 in the majors, but was demoted back to the minors for 42 games in the middle of 1959.   So he really wasn’t fully established as a major leaguer until 1960.  Despite being up and down for 5 years, he was still only 23 when he finally found his footing.  
 

The joys of an infinitely auto-renewing contract.  Observations like this are why I'm sure players would be called up much earlier if not for service time rules.  If everyone became a free agent at 28 or 29 many high draft picks would be in the majors at 18 or 19.

[LA2]

2 hours ago, foxfield said:

I hope we win the World Series in Adley's second year over Philly.

Pourquoi Philly?

[Frobby]

58 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Obviously love Eddie, but how does he win in '77 over Mitchell Page who had an OPS 125 points higher, had a .405 OBP, and stole 42 bases to Eddie's zero?

It boils down to two things:

1.  In 1977, nobody gave a damn about walks and OBP.   This really came down to Page’s higher BA vs. Eddie’s higher HRs and RBI.

2.  The fact that Eddie nearly carried the O’s to an unexpected playoff berth was a huge factor.  Eddie had a great September in a pennant race.  Page also had a great September but nobody cared because Oakland was hopelessly out of it.  

In hindsight, it’s clear Page had a better rookie year than Eddie.   But on the prevailing criteria at the time, there was a good basis for choosing Eddie.   

As an aside, 1977 was by far Page’s best year, 6.1 rWAR compared to a career 7.9 rWAR.

 

[DrungoHazewood]

31 minutes ago, Frobby said:

It boils down to two things:

1.  In 1977, nobody gave a damn about walks and OBP.   This really came down to Page’s higher BA vs. Eddie’s higher HRs and RBI.

2.  The fact that Eddie nearly carried the O’s to an unexpected playoff berth was a huge factor.  Eddie had a great September in a pennant race.  Page also had a great September but nobody cared because Oakland was hopelessly out of it.  

In hindsight, it’s clear Page had a better rookie year than Eddie.   But on the prevailing criteria at the time, there was a good basis for choosing Eddie.   

As an aside, 1977 was by far Page’s best year, 6.1 rWAR compared to a career 7.9 rWAR.

 

Good points.  I think I've read something about what happened to Paige, but I've forgotten if it was injuries or something else.

[Ohfan67]

I think Adley had the most valuable rookie season, but I wouldn't use the adjective "greatest" to describe it. Several of the pitchers seemed to have more dominating rookie seasons and Adley's offensive value was primarily walking and not hitting (although the number of doubles he hit was very impressive). Definitely a fun exercise to compare Adley's season to the Oriole greats. 

[SteveA]

2 hours ago, LA2 said:

Pourquoi Philly?

Cuz that's what Cal did.

But then we went at least 39 years without another WS.   

[foxfield]

3 hours ago, LA2 said:

Pourquoi Philly?

In 1982 Rookie Cal came up and in 1983 the final WS Title was delivered to Baltimore with Cal catching the final out against the Philadelphia Phillies.  In 2022 Adley came up so, it would bookend perfectly if the Orioles were to beat the Phillies again and end the drought in 2023.  Exactly 40 years later.

[LA2]

1 hour ago, foxfield said:

In 1982 Rookie Cal came up and in 1983 the final WS Title was delivered to Baltimore with Cal catching the final out against the Philadelphia Phillies.  In 2022 Adley came up so, it would bookend perfectly if the Orioles were to beat the Phillies again and end the drought in 2023.  Exactly 40 years later.

Got it--Thanks!