Four AL voters had Bobby Witt Jr. over Jeremy Pena, and Witt finished 4th.

Nobody cares who finished 4th-5th in Rookie of the Year voting, especially when there are only three spots on the ballot, but this makes no sense to me. Witt and Pena played the same position and Pena played it much, much better (and won a Gold Glove); they were about equal with the bat (102 OPS+ for Witt, 101 OPS+ for Pena). Pena ended up with 4.8 WAR to 0.8 for Witt.

Arguments for Witt:
Baserunning - Witt had 30 stolen bases to 11 for Pena
Playing time - Witt played in 14 more games
Future prospect-ness - Witt is almost 3 years younger than Pena and was higher ranked going into the season

Arguments for Pena:
He had a much better year as a rookie.

A team that's already got Acuna and Albies locked up for pennies (and Riley locked up for somewhat more) getting Harris and Strider just isn't fair. They didn't defend their title, but the future is bright in ATL.

A team that's already got Acuna

Braves are getting a lot of flak from their fans that they need to trade Acuna cause he's a "lazy _____" basically. I doubt Acuna lasts long in ATL.

Braves are getting a lot of flak from their fans that they need to trade Acuna cause he's a "lazy _____" basically. I doubt Acuna lasts long in ATL.

Would you like a slightly used Jason Heyw ... oh crap, freely available. OK, OK, you've twisted my arm, pending FA Ian Happ it is. Happ doesn't even know the meaning of the word "lazy" much less have a clue what the blank is.

Arguments for Pena:
He had a much better year as a rookie.

Witt was also atrocious defensively. I think he can improve, but I was not expecting that from a guy that seems very skilled.

I'm glad to be vindicated, even though I eventually came out on the wrong guess for NL roy. I've been arguing that a pitcher, even if they have the better season doesn't win roy unless it's not close (I use Ankiel/Furcal as evidence of that argument--note starting pitcher, closers I think get stronger recognition/acknowledgement. ) but everyone kept saying Strider was going to win that I hedged and agreed. I never should have caved. Some people even thought that the top two Braves might split the vote, giving Donovan a window, and on that one I never hedged, vote splitting doesn't allow the lesser performance to jump the line, it needs to be close for it to have any chance of coming up incorrect, especially for ROY... with MVP there is always the weird argument that one player has to be more important to his team so should be downgraded, but roy that isn't really a viable argument.


Superficially Witt and Pena had the same season, it all comes down to how you value defensive stats, bWar(rField) has them being 38 runs difference, I have no idea if that is observable difference since I don't remember seeing much of either one of them, or not, but it's basically Old Jeter vs peak Vizquel.

Maybe a voter, looking for some differentiation between two superficially similar shortstops, sees one has 80 rbi and 30 steals, and the other "only" 63 and 11, and isn't savvy enough to think defense might also make a difference.

I admit I'm a Kwan fan and liked the rookie performance he put up, some promising strike zone judgement offensively and stellar defense as well. He was clearly a key part of Cleveland's surprise success this year.

No idea how it will translate to future performance, though.