Pittsburgh Pirates: Four Players Robbed of NL Rookie of the Year

National League Most Valuable Player Award is not the only award players from the Pittsburgh Pirates have been snubbed of over the years. Many have been snubbed in their first big league season for the National League Rookie of the Year Award.

A few weeks ago, we went over four times a Pittsburgh Pirates player was snubbed of an MVP award. It’s not the only time a player from the Pittsburgh Pirates has missed out on an award because of reasons out of their control.

It’s easy to look back at times when a player should have won an award, but didn’t because of factors of the era. Obviously, today, we know that RBIs are not good ways of analyzing how good a player is when it comes to driving in runs. But back before the 2000s, RBIs at times made someone a winner. The same can be said for other stats like batting average and pitcher wins/losses.

Since 1951, the Rookie of the Year has regularly been awarded to a player of each league. So let’s go back and look at times when a Pittsburgh Pirates player should have won the National League Rookie of the Year award.

To compare players, we will be using stats such as OPS+, wRC+, ERA-/+ and FIP-. Each of these stats are adjusted for factors of the era. For example, the league average ERA in 2000 was 4.77, and the league average ERA in 2014 was over a whole run lower at 3.74. ERA- is adjusted for that, as well as park factors. Both wRC+ and OPS+ are offensive stats adjusted for the same reasons. Batting with a .500 slugging percentage means two different things if you’re in the steroid era, or the deadball era. Also, awards are voted on before the playoffs, so any sort of playoff contributions will not be a factor here.

So with that all out of the way, let’s get into our first rookie snub.