Friday, October 21
Street Wins TSN AL Rookie of the Year
Former Texas’-current Oakland Athletics closer Huston Street was named The Sporting News’s AL Rookie of the Year on Friday. Horns fans were not surprised to see Street transition smoothly to the big league level, but few could have predicted he’d be this successful. For those that aren’t baseball fans, let’s put this in perspective a bit.
Mariano Rivera, who everyone knows, had a truly dominant season. He’s likely to receive a number of Cy Young votes, and could very well finish in the top three. To give you an idea of how good Street was this year, let’s turn to Baseball Prospectus’s advance metric for measuring pitchers’ value, VORP (Value Over Replacement Pitcher). Rivera managed an outstanding 32.3 VORP, second best among all relievers in the American League. The only relief pitcher with more VORP was Street, with 33.3.
VORP increases the more innings you pitch, so dominant starters can rack up higher VORP easier than relievers. That Street accumulated a 33.3 VORP in just 78.3 innings is remarkable, and a testament to how good he was when he was on the mound. Congratulations to Huston Street.
Mariano Rivera, who everyone knows, had a truly dominant season. He’s likely to receive a number of Cy Young votes, and could very well finish in the top three. To give you an idea of how good Street was this year, let’s turn to Baseball Prospectus’s advance metric for measuring pitchers’ value, VORP (Value Over Replacement Pitcher). Rivera managed an outstanding 32.3 VORP, second best among all relievers in the American League. The only relief pitcher with more VORP was Street, with 33.3.
VORP increases the more innings you pitch, so dominant starters can rack up higher VORP easier than relievers. That Street accumulated a 33.3 VORP in just 78.3 innings is remarkable, and a testament to how good he was when he was on the mound. Congratulations to Huston Street.
Even using traditional metrics, Street was outstanding, going 5-1 with a 1.72 ERA, with 72 strikeouts and 23 saves in 78 innings.
--PB--
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As a lifelong A's fan (and Texas fan since 2002), I'm very happy to see him get the recognition he deserves. I just hope the A's can hold onto him before the Yankees or Red Sox start waving their checkbooks at him.
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