What's with the Warner Wolf style headline?

What's with the Warner Wolf style headline?

Saw a lot of Wolf on TV back in the day, so I went and looked up clips on YouTube. One happened to be Roger Maris who, following his 1961 MVP win and after leading the league in HR, runs, RBI, and total bases—same as Judge this year—was given a $4,000 raise. Run that through an inflation calculator and that would be $36,000 more for Judge next year.

This seems like a light return for Lewis. I'm going to guess most of the league assumes he's half broken if Seattle is trading him at all.

Over the last 2 years, he has less than 400 PA across majors and minors. He's turning 27 and Seattle didn't consider him good enough to be in the majors all year in 2022. Just a follow-on from the Teoscar acquisition, somebody had to go -- teams rarely get good return in those situations. You are of course right that he's been a solid player when he could play but he's super-2 eligible and doesn't even have a full season's worth of PAs yet.

Lewis just never quite panned out. Now, maybe the D-backs have swung a brilliant trade and he'll flower in Phoenix. But the M's didn't have anywhere to play him and he hasn't managed to live up to the promise he showed when he was a rookie. Couple that with the fact that he was a late debut and so is not not exactly young in baseball terms, and the Mariners were probably right to unload him for something, anything, a this point.

I wonder how many teams have won two Rookie of the Year awards in three years with position players who play the same position, in this case center field? The Reds had Pete Rose in 1964 and Tommy Helms in 1966, but although Helms is remembered as a second baseman (which Rose played in 1964), Helms played primarily at third in 1966.

Bob Allison and Albie Pearson won consecutive ROY in centerfield for the Senators.

Thanks - I would never have guessed that Allison played center field that season. It was his only year there as a regular.

Even Rose and Helms aren't really good answers, since Rose won 1963 @2B and Helms won 1966 @3B.
Mondesi (1994) and Hollandsworth (1996) might qualify as "OF" but I wouldn't count that, because they were clearly RF and LF.
Cepeda (1958) and McCovey (1959) is the only real answer. Cepeda played 147G @1B (no where else) and McCovey played 51G @1B (no where else) in their ROTY seasons.

Just before that too ... Wally Moon played CF in 54 then a mix of 1B/LF/CF/RF in 55 when Virdon took over main CF duties.

No doubt this has been done a million times before but ... based strictly on their RoY year ... but not worrying specifically about which position they played ... the AL cleans the NL's clock by WAR

C: Fisk 7.3 Piazza 7.0
1B: McGwire 5.1 Pujols 6.6
2B: Pedroia 3.9 LeFebvre 4.6
SS: Nomar 6.6 Seager 5.2
3B: Longoria 4.8 Bryant 5.3
LF: Judge 8.0 Robinson 6.5
CF: Trout 10.5 Agee 6.4
RF: Ichiro 7.7 Harris 5.3
DH: Lynn 7.4 Allen 8.8
RHP: Fidrych 9.6 Seaver 6.7
LHP: Peters 7.0 Montefusco 6.4
Reliever: Bailey 3.7 Williamson 2.6 (that's Andrew Bailey and Scott Williamson)

I get 81.6 WAR for the AL and 71.4 for the NL. The NL OF is "pathetic." You could tweak a bit ... for example Pujols to 3B but that just opens 1B for Alonso (5.5 WAR). Same if you move Allen to 1B or 3B. Meanwhile the AL had Oliva (6.8), JRod 6.2, Alvin Davis 6.0, Abreu 5.8 and even Munson 5.5 sitting around doing nothing.

EDIT: 8 of the top 10 RoY WAR are AL

I'll correct my own boo-boo ... The Count was a RHP, my brain wasn't certain and my other brain meant to double-check. NOt a big change, top NL LHP is Matlack at 6.1 WAR.

Maybe it's trivia time

In what years (players) did the RoY have more WAR than the MVP (in the same league)? Feel free to compare RoY pitchers to the CYA winner while you're at it.

Trivia:

Hitting:
1956 - I'm off to a bad start, because it's apples vs oranges. But maybe Frank Robinson's debut hitting in CIN had more WAR than Don Newcombe pitching for Brooklyn? (But we know the reasons why MVP - in 1955 the Dodgers finally won the World Series after losing in the championship series 4 of the previous 8 years {always to the Yankees}, and in 1956 won 93 games. If they had awarded MVP to a statistically more valuable player like Duke Snider, it wouldn't be an answer.)
1960 - I'll guess Frank Howard had more WAR as a rookie than Dick Groat had as MVP.
1964 - I'll guess Richie Allen had more WAR as a ROTY in PHI (the city of brotherly love) than Ken Boyer's MVP on the playoff-bound STL.
1975 - I'll guess Fred Lynn had the same WAR as Fred Lynn as he won the ROTY and MVP!
1976 - Again apples and oranges, but although Thurman Munson was a good player and leader on a playoff team, there is no way his stats (WAR) are better than ROTY Mark Fidrych that year.
1991 - I'll bet Jeff Bagwell was better as a ROTY than chubby Terry Pendleton as MVP on the playoff-bound Barves.

Pitching:
1967 - I'm pretty sure ROTY Tom Seaver was better than Mike McCormick's 22 win CYA, even though he was just 16-13 for the Mets.
1979 - I'll guess ROTY Rick Sutcliffe was better than Bruce Sutter CYA.
1981 - I'll bet Fernando's CYA numbers are equal to his ROTY numbers during this year! (Or are they? Does his ROTY also include hitting in his WAR?)
1984 - I'm not saying Sutcliffe got robbed in 1979 of CYA, because there was probably one or two Niekro's better than him, and Seaver and Carlton were in their prime, and JR Richard. Let alone Burt Hooton or Don Sutton on his own team. But Sutcliffe won that ROTY, and then in 1984 he won CYA because he went 16-1 after being traded mid-season to the Cubs, but I'll bet his 1984 CYA season wasn't better than Gooden's Rookie year.

I would guess D-Train had more WAR than Eric Gagne in 2003.

You have a much better memory of RoYs and MVPs than I do and some excellent guesses:

1956 -- correct; Robinson 6.6 to Newcombe 5.3
1960 -- you're way off here I'm afraid. Howard just 1.9; Groat 6.1
1964 -- correct; Allen 8.8 laps Boyer at 6.1. Allen also tops Brooks 8.1 in the AL
1975 -- OK, correct ... but then how did you not also get Ichiro-Ichiro?
1976 -- correct
1991 -- nope, Bagwell 4.8 to Pendleton 6.1

I think there are 7 more (don't count on that!), either kinda "obvious" or involving players already mentioned in this thread.

Your pitching guesses (not gonna count how many qualifiers there are):

1967 -- correct, Seaver 6.7 to McCormick 4.4 (note AL CYA Lonborg had only 4.0 WAR)
1979 -- wrong! Sutter 4.9 WAR (101 IP of 2.22 ERA) vs Sutcliffe 4.1 ... excellent guess though
1981 -- let's call this correct whether hitting stats are included or not
1984 -- correct, Gooden 5.7 to Sutcliffe 3.9

I'll call that very well done

EDIT: #15 also correct on the RoY vs CYA 2003

Looking only at the lists of winners (not stats).

Guessing that a pitcher ROY outWARed the CY winner:

1981 AL: ROY Righetti - CY Fingers
1976 AL: ROY Fidrych - CY Palmer
1967 NL: ROY Seaver - CY McCormick
1976 NL: ROY Zachry - CY Jones

Guessing that ROY outWARed the MVP:

1951 NL: ROY Mays > MVP Campanella
1947 NL: ROY Robinson > MVP Elliott
2006 NL: ROY Hanley > MVP Howard
2012 AL: ROY Trout > MVP Cabrera
1996 AL: ROY Jeter > MVP Gonzalez
1992 AL: ROY Listach > MVP Eckersley
1987 AL: ROY McGwire > MVP Bell
1984 AL: ROY Davis > MVP Hernandez

Longshot guesses:

2007 NL: ROY Braun > MVP Rollins
1987 NL: ROY Santiago > MVP Dawson
1977 NL: ROY Dawson > MVP Foster
1999 AL: ROY Beltran > MVP Pudge
1997 AL: ROY Nomar > MVP Griffey
1978 AL: ROY Whitaker > MVP Rice
1977 AL: ROY Murray > MVP Carew
1950 AL: ROY Dropo > MVP Rizzuto

Dupe that is corrected below

Guessing that a pitcher ROY outWARed the CY winner:

1967 was already guessed and confirmed (crossed in the ether no doubt)
1981 no, Fingers by 0.7
1976 AL correct
1976 NL nope ... Zachry did out-WAR his co-RoY by 2.1 though

Guessing that ROY outWARed the MVP:

1951 NL: No ... Mays just 3.9, well behind
1947 NL: No ... Robinson just 4.1
2006 NL: close, just 0.3 WAR ... Verlander also just 0.3 WAR behind Morneau, terrible MVP year
2012 AL: Correct, not even close
1996 AL: close, just 0.5 WAR
1992 AL: correct ... wow, Eck was 30 years ago
1987 AL: correct, by just 0.1 WAR
1984 AL: correct

So he cracked one of the codes -- look for a MVP/CYA reliever. Still at least 3 out there. [edit: I mean three ROY>MVP out there, I think we've got all the closers.)

Hints: One of them, the difference is so huge it's kinda famous ... although the difference is also very small. ('Tis a riddle.) For another, think about both sides of the question. The last one has already been named elsewhere in this thread ... and you've already kinda cracked the code on #3 with #2 being an exception to this rule.

Longshots
2007: Braun only played about 2/3 and his 3B defense made Harvey long for Gary Sheffield
1987: nope, close
1977: oh no, no ... George had 8 WAR
1999: nope
1997: nope, Griffy had 9 WAR
1978: nope, Rice with twice the WAR ... had me worried though
1977: eek no, Carew had three times the WAR
1950: nope, another big gap

Hints: One of them, the difference is so huge it's kinda famous ... although the difference is also very small. ('Tis a riddle.)

Judge/Altuve I'm guessing? I remember that they were pretty close to tied in value. I thought Altuve was barely ahead but it could be the other way or depending on the formulation of WAR.

Yes, Judge at 8, Altuve at 7.7 in the latest version of WAR.

The final two I found are:

1970 AL: RoY Munson had 5.5 WAR vs Boog's 5.1. Given Boog was well behind Oliva (7) and Yaz (9.5!) we can put that one on the MVP voters. Anyway, as Snowboy pointed out, Munson's MVP year is well in the shadow of Fidrych's RoY but here he is beating the MVP in his RoY year. (Thinking about both ends of the question.)

1963 AL: Gary Peters (7.0), the LH starter on the AL RoY all-stars, over Elston Howard (5.2).

So the "code" generally was find low-WAR MVPs and of course closers and catchers are often low-WAR by MVP standards. Obviously not always for the Cs but you were in that direction with your Pudge and Campy guesses and we already had the Munson case. So I thought you might get Elston.

1963 was an algorithm blind spot - first I considered pitcher ROY compared to CY (Peters was not better than the 1963 CY), and then hitter ROY to MVP, but never pitcher ROY to MVP. Probably i would have gotten it otherwise.