Overlooked and under-appreciated, Rockies who never received proper Rookie of the Year notoriety

The Colorado Rockies won the first and only National League Jackie Robinson Rookie of the Year Award in 2002 thanks to a 16-8 season by 23-year-old Jason Jennings. 

There were also two instances of runner-up seasons – Todd Helton in 1998 and Troy Tulowitzki in 2007 – but the franchise has otherwise been left out of the honor for the league’s top rookie.

When reviewing the simple metric that’s complexly-computed, Baseball Reference’s wins-above-replacement (bWAR) does nicely to help compare and contrast over generations and as well as within a single season.

As obviously successful as Jennings pitched in ‘02, his 2.1 bWAR is only the 10th-best in team history by a novice pitcher. Of those nine seasons better, only three were acknowledge with as little as a third-place vote.

Setting aside instances in which a Colorado player deserved more votes or higher placement – Tulowitzki in 2007 is an obvious talking-point, especially when considering he finished higher than winner Ryan Braun in MVP voting that season – we’ll be looking strictly at the seasons in which no votes were cast for a player deserving of some acknowledgement.

Tyler Anderson, 2016 

Before the big three of Germán Márquez, Kyle Freeland and Antonio Senzatela burst onto the scene to throw a combined 452.2 innings in 2017, there was Tyler Anderson the year prior.

The 20th overall pick in the 2011 MLB Draft was impressive during three seasons in the minors, pitching to a 2.31 ERA over 59 starts. He debuted on June 12 at home and held the San Diego Padres to one run over 6.1 innings, striking out six and walking none. 

The University of Oregon product made a habit of throwing quality starts while missing bats and not the strike zone. Four times during these outings in 2016 he walked none and struck out at least five, most by a rookie in a single year. He did this a total of seven times in his four-year career with Colorado, a mark only Jeff Francis (12), Márquez (11) and Jon Gray (8) have bested. 

In addition, his 137 ERA+ was second-highest by a rookie starter in 2016. By comparison, Jennings had a 106 ERA+ in his award-winning season. 

A review of the other candidates around the league makes it abundantly clear that Anderson shouldn’t have won the award over unanimous winner Corey Seager, but he was worthy of at least one third-place vote. You could even make the case that he was more worthy of the solitary vote given to Gray.

It wouldn’t be until the next season when Márquez and Freeland became the second pair of rotation mates who received ROY votes in the same year following Jennings and Denny Stark in 2002. 

Ian Stewart, 2008

The lone hitter of this snubbed group, Ian Stewart had a half-season in 2008 before being best known as the big league portion of the package dealt to the Chicago Cubs in Dec. 2011 that brought DJ LeMahieu to Colorado. 

Stewart batted just .259 with 10 home runs and 41 RBI, but his offensive output coupled with above average abilities at third base made him worth 1.4 bWAR in what would be the second-best season of his seven-year career by that metric.

While Juan Uribe (1.6) in 2001 and Connor Joe (1.6) in 2021 were the only position players to accrue more bWAR in their rookie season with the Rockies than Stewart, both players had the misfortune of being behind a unanimous and nearly unanimous NL ROY in Albert Pujols and Jonathan India, respectively.

The same is true of Stewart’s 2008 as Geovany Soto received 31 of 32 first-place votes with Joey Votto breaking the consensus. Jay Bruce received several votes and finished fifth despite similar numbers as Stewart at the plate – .254, 21 HR, 52 RBI – with worse defense. Similar story with Kosuke Fukudome who was also below Stewart in terms of bWAR that season.

Manny Corpas, 2007

As the closer for a team making headlines around the country for winning the final 13 of the last 14 games of the season before the wild walk-off in Game 163, Corpas should have received some love for his work in the ninth-inning having recorded 18 of his 19 saves in the second-half. 

Only one pitcher garnered a Rookie of the Year Award vote that season, future Rockies’ Opening Day starter Kyle Kendrick. According to bWAR, Corpas was third-best amongst the group that did get acknowledged. 

Corpas saved 19 games for Colorado with a 2.08 ERA and an incredible 232 ERA+, an impressive feat. Only six times has a reliever thrown as many as 50 innings with an ERA+ over 200 for the club. Corpas, of course, is the only rookie on that list.

His 2.9 bWAR was most amongst rookie pitchers in 2007. In a historical context, it was almost unparalleled. In the 135-year history of the NL, only Frank Linzy of the 1965 San Francisco Giants had ever accumulated more bWAR with a better ERA+ and at least 15 saves.

John Thompson, 1997

As part of the Rockies second draft class in team history in 1993, John Thompson would also be a part of the first Asheville Tourists team fielded by the organization in 1994. As a rookie in 1997, he had a 4.71 ERA and went just 7-9.

For that time, this was not considered to be very good. Well before the dawn of sabermetrics and the understanding that a win-loss record does not define a pitcher’s abilities, not to mention a lack of appreciation for such an earned run average in Colorado, Thompson has the sixth-highest bWAR (2.8) of any pitcher in his rookie campaign for the franchise.

A total of 12 players received a vote for NL ROY in 1997, including Thomson’s teammate Neifi Pérez. Five pitchers received a vote, all of which had a better ERA; but according to bWAR, only two were better than Thomson. 

José Guillén of the Pittsburgh Pirates batted .267 with 14 home runs and 70 runs batted in, finishing in a tie for seventh-place just behind future Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero. With the advent of wins above replacement, Guillen’s solid season of contribution can be put into better context. Because of incredibly poor defensive play in right field, he was worth an astounding -3.3 bWAR.