Jimmy Rollins is the Best Shortstop in Baseball!

Jimmy Rollins has been well and truly ignored by the world. Here's a lead-off man with over 50 RBIs at the All-Star Break, who is leading the league in runs scored and who plays a excellent shortstop. Not only was he not selected for the All Star team by the fan vote or the reserves by the coaches and players, but he was not even on the list of alternates for people to vote on (neither was Ryan Howard, which is just stupid since he's the reigning MVP and home run king.)

Let's examine young J-Roll. He's a terrific lead-off batter. He doesn't get a lot of credit for this because of his lower on base percentage. Bill James, among other people, have convinced the world that in order to be a great leadoff man it is important to get on base, like say, Tim Raines or Brett Butler or Ricky Henderson, all of whom tended to have on-base percentages in the .390 or higher range. Jimmy hovers around .330. So, yes, that is a significant difference.

However, what is the point, I ask you, of getting on base? Well, what is the point of baseball? To win the World Series. How do you do that? You win games. How do you do that? You score more runs than the other team. How do you do that? Well, you score runs. Getting on base helps you score runs, and obviously, Ricky Henderson et al. scored plenty of runs. Brett Butler scored 100 runs six times, and his career high was 112. Tim Raines scored 100 runs 6 times with a career high of 133 and 123. Ricky Henderson scored an insane amount of runs, the most ever, with 13 seasons over 100 and highs of 144 and 130. Jimmy Rollins has, in his young career, scored over 100 three times (in 6 complete seasons, with 71 at the 2007 All-Star break) with a career high of 127 that he will almost certainly surpass this year. He scores runs while getting on base with less frequency than same other leadoff men do. How does he manage this? He has more power than most lead off men and he has speed. He hits a lot of doubles and triples and steals a good number of bases and is almost never caught stealing. This power and speed close the gap with regard to the on-base percentage issue.

He has enough power that for several games when Ryan Howard was hurt, J-Roll batted third. Because of the power, he has 53 runs batted in to date in 2007. He's tied for 18th in the league. And, of course, he's led off most of the year, so he's batting with the men the 7th, 8th, and 9th slots on base (and with no designated hitter in the National League, that includes the pitcher's spot.) Those people don't get on base that often and he's knocking them in anyway. One knock on him is that he is enamored of his power and is thus not enough of a conact hitter for the lead off spot, which is why his his walks and on base percentage are low: he strikes out a lot. And he does strike out a lot, but strike outs are not that horrible when considered with everything else. For one thing, if a player strikes out, he is not grounding into a double play. J-Roll's offensive contributions taken in their entirety allow him to bypass the typical "get-on-base" issue to score a lot of runs anyway, and thus manage to put him into the area of great lead-off men.

Additionally, he plays a key defensive position at shortstop. He's a very good, not a great defensive shortstop, but he has a strong, accurate arm, and he is always above average in number of chances, assists and fielding percentage, and he has a good number of put outs and plays a tremendous amount of defensive innings at short. And like any good shortstop, he provides leadership for his team. He made some headlines this year by claiming the Phillies were the team to beat in the national league. This caused some sniggering when the Phillies got off to a 4-9 start, but they are only 4.5 games back at the break, and, besides, what is he supposed to say? That his team has no chance? Jimmy Rollins is a brilliant lead off man who drives in a terrific number of runs, is a team leader and plays a key defensive position well and is leading the lead in runs at the break. I think he should have been on the All-Star Team.