by great gretzky » Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:28 pm
I realize that. But in terms of fantasy, I have two thoughts (while really trying to avoid denigrating him):
first, great, he did it in two - thirds of a season. Well, he didn't do what he didn't do. I think there is obviously a trend in these discussions to extrapolate, and fair enough. But how do we know if he would have gotten tired or slumped, gotten figured out or whatever? I don't think that is the case, but i am loathe to give someone credit (or make assumptions) on things that are conjecture. He likely would have had better numbers, but he didn't. And if we are comparing rookie campaigns I am comparing rookie campaigns. And in absolute sense, it wasn't unprecedented, in that he didn't do more, his numbers are his numbers, and he did what he did.
Second, since it took him time to come up, and then time after that to get noticed like this, how many owners "missed stats"? I realize that is exactly what I complain about in reverse, but I do it for a reason. There are other rookies who in a relative and absoloute sense, approached, matched, and possibly exceeded (it is genuinely hard to tell with roto in my opinion what you would prefer, RBI or stolen bases) Braun.
And I mean for all intents and purposes, we can play the "what if" game all over (and we are when arguing 2/3 of a season). what if Arod got called up sooner? I know this is hypothetical, and not trying to start a fight. Yes, braun was awesome, but it could be argued that just the previous year, a guy with stats pretty comparable depending on outlook happened just the year before. I mean a 17 hr, 50 steal guy ain't all that common. Anyway, some of this comes down to personal preference, extrapolation, and how it specifically affected you. How was your team constructed, how long did it take you to buy it, and thus play him, etc. I just don't buy that it is some watershed thing that is to be worshiped either, because there have been guys in the past 10, 15 years who have had rookie campaigns on par at least.