As you may recall, I last sent Baby Winexp (v46) to her room for telling me Rincon was doing well and that Blanton wasn't as good as I thought he was. Well, she used her time wisely and had some updates for me.

(What are these numbers? You can look at background here. They were computed using some clever routines I wrote to convert game play-by-play information into information about changing game win probabilities. The software is buggy, but most of the truly embarrassing bugs are gone. These measure offense only, not defense.)

Rookie of the Year

Here is a ranking of some frontrunners for RoY as of today. I think Baby Winexp won't get an argument from us that Street is the RoY by a mile.

Team    Name            WXC Events
OAK     Huston Street*  3.532   298
CHW     Tadahito Iguchi 2.095   540
OAK     Dan Johnson     1.836   383
TOR     Gustavo Chacin* 1.282   786
OAK     Joe Blanton*    1.209   765
OAK     Nick Swisher    0.298   474
NYY     Robinson Cano   -0.532  475

The only complaint might be Cupcakes's low ranking. Fair enough, if you want to forget May (what's that?) and start counting from June, the rankings now go:

OAK     Huston Street*  3.026   186
OAK     Dan Johnson     2.276   361
OAK     Joe Blanton*    2.181   539
OAK     Nick Swisher    1.073   360
CHW     Tadahito Iguchi 0.728   337
TOR     Gustavo Chacin* 0.568   528
NYY     Robinson Cano   -0.054  393

MVP

BOS     David Ortiz       7.628    642
NYY     Alex Rodriguez    6.158    664
HOU     Roger Clemens*    6.065    777
ATL     Chipper Jones     5.888    387
STL     Chr Carpenter*    5.883    883
FLA     Dontre Willis*    5.846    839
FLA     Carlos Delgado    5.325    560
ARI     Tony Clark        4.867    343
ANA     Vladi Guerrero    4.52    556
CHC     Carl Zambrano*    4.459    834

On sheer clutch offense, Ortiz wins easily in the AL. In the NL, it's too close to call between three great pitchers and Chipper Jones(!).

For perspective, here are the A's best WXC players to date:

OAK     Huston Street*    3.532    298
OAK     Rich Harden*      2.669    499
OAK     Eric Chavez       1.868    644
OAK     Dan Johnson       1.836    383
OAK     J Duchscherer*    1.663    326
OAK     Joe Blanton*      1.209    765
OAK     Bobby Kielty      1.105    420
OAK     Barry Zito*       1.070    888
OAK     Mark Kotsay       0.970    583
OAK     Adam Melhuse      0.800    94
OAK     Jay Payton        0.590    239
OAK     Mark Ellis        0.573    422
OAK     Eric Byrnes       0.551    220
OAK     Kiko Calero*      0.440    226
OAK     Nick Swisher      0.298    474
OAK     Kirk Saarloos*    0.271    619

Huston ranks 26th in the majors.

AL Cy Young

I hesitated to post this section, because who would believe someone who claimed that :d was the best active pitcher in the AL?

TOR     Roy Halladay*     4.323    567
OAK     Huston Street*    3.532    298
ANA     Fra Rodriguez*    3.164    249
CHW     Cliff Politte*    3.123    242
ANA     Bartolo Colon*    2.911    838
CHW     Mark Buehrle*     2.812    891
MIN     Johan Santana*    2.748    806
OAK     Rich Harden*      2.669    499

I'll just leave it at that.

Nostalgia

Also for the nostalgia of it all:

NYY     Jason Giambi      3.663    487
STL     Mark Mulder*      3.155    812
ATL     Tim Hudson*       2.14    738
CLE     Arthur Rhodes*    0.73    177
BOS     Chad Bradford*    0.108    88
BAL     Miguel Tejada     -0.358    633
TOR     Ted Lilly*        -1.702    512
PIT     Mark Redman*      -1.049    754
BOS     Keith Foulke*     -2.184    214

COL     Eric Byrnes       0.236    62
OAK     Eric Byrnes       0.551    220
BAL     Eric Byrnes       -0.841

2004

There's so much I'd like to say about 2004, but I'm tired. I can't resist listing the top WXC in baseball in 2004:

SF      Barry Bonds       13.372    614
STL     Jim Edmonds       5.917    616
STL     Albert Pujols     5.908    680
COL     Todd Helton       5.806    667
LA      Adrian Beltre     5.726    672
TEX     Mark Teixeira     5.429    614
HOU     Lance Berkman     5.162    690
CIN     Adam Dunn         5.108    679
COL     Jeromy Burnitz    5.079    603
MIN     Johan Santana*    5.011    888
ANA     Vladi Guerrero    4.856    695

That Bonds dude was a cartoon.