This is the BBA ballot for the 2009 AL Rookie of the Year vote from Baseball Reflections. Honorable mentions include Tigers SP Rick Porcello who might have gotten a top 3 vote if he was better supported by the Tigers, likewise with Rays SP Jeff Niemann. Last but not least, Rangers SS Elvis Andrus who is by far the best defensive player out of all six listed here, but his offense fell just shy of the rest. Here is the explanation of my madness…I mean methodology…due to the fact that players came up from the minors at all different times, I took the percentage of their total hits and games played (depending on the category) as a way to determine how each player fared against the others in their rookie class.
What makes this more difficult is the fact that you have two players in the more skilled positions of catcher and shortstop while the other two played third base and left field. My tendency was to give intangible points to the players in the skilled positions. Lik...
Original Story:
