NL Rookie of the Year

Bryce Harper first garnered national attention when he was the second up-and-coming phenom signed by the Nationals in consecutive years, the first of course being Stephen Strasburg. He made national attention again by showing up a team after hitting a home run in a minor league game. In 2012, he was called up to the major leagues and became a productive young outfielder.

Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper has provided
a spark for a very dangerous lineup

The love affair began.

Between making exciting plays in the outfield, taking extra bases with his hustle on the basepaths, getting intentionally beamed by Cole Hamels, stealing home, making the All-Star team, and helping make the Nationals relevant for the first time since... ever, Harper has had an outstanding rookie season.

But there is a rookie in Cincinnati making his case for some national attention of his own.
His name is Todd Frazier. Frazier, who has received time in the major leagues off-and-on with the Reds over the past couple seasons, is receiving his first real chance at the major league level, filling in for injured starters Scott Rolen and Joey Votto while platooning with Ryan Ludwick and Chris Heisey in left field. One thing that Reds fans have been keen to point out is that Frazier's production is comparable to Harper's despite a massive disparity in plate appearances and at-bats for the Reds' utility player. Given the popularity of the film Moneyball, I will provide a statistical breakdown of each of these players (all stats taken from baseball-reference.com).*

* - Note: All of these projections only hold water if Frazier maintains a consistent level of play, which is never guaranteed for a rookie. Despite this, his pace-of-production cannot be overlooked.

The formula I am using for this is simple. Let us say, hypothetically, Todd Frazier were to receive the same amount of at-bats and plate appearances as Bryce Harper. What would his production look like? At this point in the season, Harper has 91 more plate appearances and 80 more at-bats than Todd Frazier. If Frazier's level of production remains consistent, what would his numbers look like over the same sample size?

We will begin with the Triple Crown stats: Batting Average, Runs Batted In, and Home Runs. The stats are a bit skewed here, as Bryce Harper has started 57 games batting second to Todd Frazier's 50 started batting either sixth or seventh, which provide much more RBI opportunities than Harper. That said, here's the breakdown.

Harper: .272 AVG, 29 RBI, 9 HR
Frazier: .285 AVG, 46 RBI, 14 HR

Math breakdown: First and most obvious, Frazier's .285 AVG would have to remain static for any of these projections to work. As for RBIs, Frazier currently drives in an RBI every 7th plate appearance. Multiplied out over 91 plate appearances, Frazier would find himself with another 13 RBIs. Finally on to home runs: Frazier currently hits a home run every 23.6 plate appearances, which would net him about 4 homers over 91 more plate appearances.

Okay, so what if Frazier hits more homers and drives in more runs? Harper's job is to get on base, not drive people in. Well, it turns out that Frazier would have him beat here, too. In addition to all of these stats, Todd Frazier gets a hit once every 3.86 plate appearances as opposed to Harper's 4.08 H/PA rate. This would net Frazier an additional 23.57 hits over 91 plate appearances, bringing his total to 84 hits on the season, 4 more than Bryce Harper.

Now, what about some other relevant stats for hitters? Now we'll take a look at OBP, Slugging percentage, and OPS.

Rookie Todd Frazier has led the Reds
to some key victories this season.

Harper: .343 OBP, .449 SLG, .791 OPS
Frazier: .347 OBP, .542 SLG, .890 OPS

What this means: Since these are all percentages, I'm going to assume that they will remain static for the sake of argument. That said, I'm going to look at what this implies. If these rates of production remain consistent, that means the two players' stats would likely look as follows:

Harper: 31 BB, 15 2B, 5 3B, 9 HR, 132 TB
Frazier: 27 BB, 21 2B, 6 3B, 14 HR, 159 TB

In this scenario, Harper's only advantage would be in drawing walks, which would give him a 4-walk lead over Frazier as Harper walks .094% of his plate appearances compared to .084% of the time for Frazier.

Now, let's look at some stats that are geared toward Harper: stats that provide RBI opportunities for teammates.

Harper: 15 2B, 5 3B, 13 SB, 61 SO, 5 GIDP, 50 R
Frazier:  21 2B, 6 3B, 1 SB, 80 SO, 6 GIDP, 37 R

First, I want to draw your attention to the fact that I am relying on previously calculated stats for Frazier's projected figures. Second, I want you to notice that I have not only done this for his positive stats, but also his negative ones. According to my projections, Frazier would strike out 22 more times and ground into one more double play, thus taking away potential RBI opportunities for teammates at a much higher rate than Harper. Despite this, Frazier's hits create more RBI opportunities for teammates by putting himself in scoring position off of hits at a higher rate than Harper, either winding up on second or third as a result of a hit on 48.8% of his hits as opposed to 25% of Harper's hits. However, if we take Harper's stolen bases into account, Harper has (in theory) turned 13 of his singles into doubles while Frazier has only done that once this season. This means that Frazier is creating an RBI opportunity 33% of the time compared to Harper's 41.25% of the time. This inevitably means that Frazier would still be well behind Harper's 50 runs scored, coming in at 37 runs scored after the projection.

Finally, let's look at some other noteworthy stats: AVG with RISP, AVG with RISP + 2 outs, Fielding %, and WAR.

Harper: .267 RISP, .182 RISP + 2 outs, .972 FLD, 1.8 WAR
Frazier: .320 RISP, .273 RISP + 2 outs, .980 FLD, 1.8 WAR

Well folks, there you have it. Frazier's clutch stats are 60 to 90 points higher than Harper's, the difference in fielding percentage is a wash, and one would figure that Frazier's WAR would climb over 2 if his level of production remained consistent. One thing to consider is that Frazier's high AVG with RISP means that he seemingly only hits when runners are poised to score -- 54% of his hits have produced runs this year -- but any and every team could certainly use production like this out of a rookie.

The Reds would not be first place in the NL Central without Todd Frazier, but the Nationals wouldn't be where they are without Bryce Harper. True, both players are valuable to their team. This is as true a sentiment as saying they are two completely different types of players. However, I hope to have shown that a further true statement must be uttered when considering these two players: Todd Frazier is out-producing Bryce Harper.