AL Rookie Rush

Jason Michael Barker

Welcome to just the second-ever edition of the Rookie Rush, the monthly feature where the name keeps changing but the players stay the same. Having checked in with the Senior Circuit (I don't know about you, but I never tire of the NL's nickname) Wednesday, today's attention is turned toward the American League.

As the Anaheim Angels have slipped in the AL West and Wild Card standings, so too have their pair of important rookies, 2B Adam Kennedy and C Ben Molina. Early in the year, Kennedy made up for his refusal to take a walk by hitting for a high batting average, a practice that doesn't work for most players in the long run. Tony Gwynn is a good example of a player who has made that approach work, but most players aren't capable of hitting .340 for a career, either. This used to be Nomar Garciaparra's approach as well, but to his credit he's dramatically improved his walk rate both last year and this.

Even with a horrible month of May, Kennedy hit a respectable .284 before the All-Star break and threw in 19 walks for a .325 on-base percentage. Now, I certainly wouldn't want that sort of OBP on my team, but the Angels were getting offense from other positions and could live with it from a middle infielder.

Since the break Kennedy has struggled mightily, perhaps the result of spending his first full season in Major League Baseball. His post-break batting average is a paltry .230 and his walk rate, which wasn't good to begin with, has become Ozzie Guillen-esque. Kennedy's five walks, coupled with the .230 average, have led to a .253 OBP since the break. Not only is that worse than what Brian Hunter did last season, it's actually a crime in 17 states (including Puerto Rico).

This late-season swoon has pulled his full-season numbers down to .265/.300/.404, or roughly what the league is hitting off a good pitcher like Curt Schilling. In case you're wondering: no, that doesn't even cut it for a middle infielder.

Molina's story is slightly different, though his numbers -- .270/.310/.402 -- are remarkably similar. The difference here is that Molina has been horrible all season with the exception of May, when he hit .461/.463/.605, good enough to keep his numbers looking good for another month or so. As the season has worn on, however, all that poor hitting has finally dragged his numbers down past average to something between below average and "replacement level," the latter being the level of performance you could expect from a theoretical hitter who's theoretically floating around in the minors somewhere.

By the way, if the idea of replacement level interests you, head on over to www.stathead.com for an in-depth treatment of the subject.

The Oakland A's haven't been shy about playing untested youngsters over the past couple of seasons and this year is no different, with the club getting solid contributions from rookies Terrance Long, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito. Long has been an interesting story this year, as there was quite a bit of hype surrounding him and various reports about what kind of player he would be. He's shown himself deserving of a starting job, and playing between Ben Grieve and Matt Stairs, he plays an important role on defense.

I was critical of his plate discipline early in the season, but by the All-Star break Long seemed to have a good grasp of how to take walks. Then an interesting thing happened -- his walk rate has dropped dramatically, but his batting average has jumped over 50 points. The result? Nearly identical OBP before and after the break. He'll have to draw more walks to become a better hitter, but knowing the A's that shouldn't be a problem.

Mulder's ERA is over six since the break, raising his season number to 5.57. The big reason he's struggled is that he's given up 188 hits in just 147 innings, or roughly 11.5 per nine innings. I have a theory about that, though. The A's are known for fielding a team of big strong guys who can hit, with little regard for defense. The left side of their infield (Eric Chavez and Miguel Tejada) is still pretty raw, and they don't play a very good defensive outfield either.

Just something to think about... with good defense (by that I mean not only a club that makes fewer errors, but one that gets to more balls as well) behind him, Mulder might well have better numbers to show for himself this season. This is particularly important for a pitcher like Mulder, who doesn't strike out many batters and relies on getting hitters to put the ball in play.

Defense or no, Zito has pitched well since being called up in late July. Unlike Mulder, Zito has kept opposing hits to a minimum, and he has a better strikeout rate as well. His 33 walks in 57.2 innings are a concern, but for the time being his 3.12 ERA is getting the job done. Perhaps this is something of the opposite effect -- Mulder is getting hit because he lets hitters put the ball in play, while Zito has succeeded by keeping the ball away from his defense by striking out hitters and giving up walks instead of hits.

Seattle's Kazuhiro Sasaki set the American League rookie record for saves on Tuesday, which should pretty much wrap up his Rookie of the Year Award barring either a total collapse or some otherworldly tear by Terrance Long or Mark Quinn. Saves are far from a perfect statistic, of course, but don't let your prejudice against them fool you into thinking Sasaki hasn't pitched well. He most certainly has, as evidenced by his 3.61 and 1.22 walks plus hits per inning pitched. He's blown just three saves all year, and opposing hitters have a .201 average against him.

Our final AL West player is Mike Lamb, a guy who I had big hopes for this season. He's been quite a disappointment, at least to me, and like Kennedy has slipped off the charts after a good start. He never hit for prototypical third baseman power, but his .264/.311/.348 line after the break isn't (as I'm fond of saying) even passable for a middle infielder. He doesn't walk very much either, so when his batting average falls off he has nothing to hold up his OBP. I might be more optimistic about a .280/.336/.395 line from a rookie 3B if he was young... but Lamb's already 25.

Moving to the Central we come to Mark Quinn, who's putting up the best raw offensive numbers of any AL rookie this season, checking in at .297/.349/.506 with 20 homers despite spending some time in the minors. He has the nice batting average going for him, which should help when it comes time for the baseball writers to cast their ROY votes. I think his RBI total (just 67) will hurt him in that regard, though. If he could play in a league with only left-handed pitchers he'd be the man -- he's hitting .360/.418/.596 against lefties this season with six homers in 89 at-bats.

Finally, there's Tampa Bay's Aubrey Huff, who couldn't have been happy to see Vinny Castilla return from the disabled list this week. The D'Rays aren't going anywhere this season, so there's really no reason for Castilla to do anything more than sit on the bench and spit seeds to close out the year while Huff gets a chance to gain experience. Huff is off to a decent start to his big league career, with a .282/.313/.449 line to show for his time. It's only 78 at-bats, though, so don't get too depressed about that OBP nor too excited about his batting average.

As I wrote last month, Tampa Bay really needs to find a taker for Castilla this off-season so Huff can play regularly. He has got nothing left to prove in the minors, while Castilla has already proven what he's capable of in the majors.

Jason Michael Barker has often wonmdered why the American League is hardly ever referred to as the "Junior Circuit". Why not point out to him that Ken Griffey doesn't play there any more at jmb@strikethree.com.