Rowengartner! You're Going In!

Hey, Hey. The Cubs are back in first place by percentage points over St. Louis, and lead the Cards in the loss column by two games. The White Sox are only two games back after a great weekend against the Yankees following their tough road trip. You could say that all is well in the City of Wind right now.

Another outstanding pitching performance by Randy Wells last night in Cincinnati. The guy improved his record to (8-4) overall, but if you look at his game log he'd be (14-2) if he had received ANY run support at all in his first several starts. The 26 year old right hander should absolutely win Rookie of the Month for July (5-1, 3.23 ERA) but how about Randy Wells for Rookie of the Year?

Wells' overall stats:
(8-4), 2.73 ERA, 102.1 IP, 65 K's, 23 BB's, 1.14 WHIP

The only rookie pitcher in the National League that even comes close to Wells is Philadelphia's J.A. Happ (7-2, 2.97 ERA). Wells has more wins, a better ERA, and a better WHIP (Happ's is 1.16). Not to mention, with the Phillies acquisition of Cliff Lee from Cleveland, there's a good chance that Happ will move to the bullpen all but ending his chances of winning R.O.Y. As far as rookie everyday players go in the National League, I've enjoyed watching leading contender Colby Rasmus of St. Louis (.252, 11 HR, 35 RBI, 310 AB's). His numbers simply aren't as staggering as Wells' or Happ's however, and now that the Cardinals acquired Matt Holliday and Mark DeRosa, watch for Rasmus' playing time to decrease in the final two months of the season. (Man would I LOVE to see Jake Fox get 310 AB's!)

I know that it's a tired argument, and that I already clamored for Fox to get more playing time a few entries ago, but let's just take a look and see what ol' Jakey has done in that amount of time.

Fox hitting stats since July 28th:
15 AB's, .267 Avg., 3 HR's, 6 RBI's

Fox overall hitting stats in 2009:
107 AB's, .308 Avg., 8 HR's, 27 RBI's

Take Fox's stats and multiply them by 2.9 (to get to Colby Rasmus' 310 AB's) and Fox is running away with the NL Rookie of the Year Award (as far as "everyday players" are concerned).

Fox projected stats w/ Rasmus' amount of AB's:
.308, 23 HR's, 78 RBI's (w/o the protection of Albert Pujols in the lineup, and w/o a position).

In the American League, all I hear about is White Sox 3B Gordon Beckham (rightfully so), but given the opportunity, Fox would murder his stats as well. Beckham is batting .311, 5 HR's, 36 RBI, in 183 AB's. Let's compare ol' Jakey to Gordon by taking Fox's stats and multiplying them by 1.71 to get Beckham's amount of AB's.

Fox projected stats w/ Beckham's amount of AB's:
.308, 14 HR's, 46 RBI's (w/o the luxury of playing everyday, and w/o a position).

Good stuff huh? Now I'm completely aware that we're only looking at the offensive statistics when comparing Jake Fox to Gordon Beckham and Colby Rasmus. There's NO doubt that those two are MUCH better defensively than good ol' Jake Fox is...right? Well, let's take a look.

Fox has played 3B, 1B, LF, RF and C (versatile?). When comparing Fox at 3B to Beckham at 3B, there's really NO comparison. Fox has 1 error in 39 chances (.974 Fielding %), while Beckham has 9 errors in 160 chances (.944 Fielding %). If Fox fielded as many chances at 3B as Gordy, he'd have only 4 errors compared to the "Golden Boy's" 9! As far as Rasmus goes, it's a little bit more difficult to compare the two. Rasmus has played the majority of his games in CF, a position that Fox has/will never play(ed). However, Rasmus does have 1 error in 19 chances at the corner outfield spots, while Fox has 1 error in 14 chances playing the corners (pretty identical considering Fox is SO terrible defensively according to all of the experts).

Yes, when getting into zone ratings and range factors, Beckham and Rasmus are superior defensively. Only a moron would argue otherwise. But when you factor in that Jake Fox is FAR superior offensively than those two, and very comparable in the field as well...it makes you really wonder why he's not playing over Koyie Hill, Geovany Soto, Mike Fontenot, Jeff Baker, and Milton Bradley. Can someone PLEASE introduce Lou to "Webby Files?"

BTW, this entry was INTENDED to be about Randy Wells...

Thanks for checking out my little blog. Hit me up on facebook or in the comments section. Right now I'm listening to "Wait at Milano" by Tim Barry. Great song by a great song writer. Drinks of Choice: OJ. Big softball game tonight, final one of the regular season. If we win, we could end up with the number one seed in the playoffs, if we lose, we'll drop to three or four. Let's make it seven in a row.

Later.
Webby