Willy Taveras 2006 OPS: .671 Hunter Pence 2007 OPS: .927 Comparing Willy Taveras to Hunter Pence is like comparing Wandy Rodriguez to Johan Santana.
actually he lost his chance when braun got called up. obviously pence is having an awesome year but he only has 8 more ab's then braun while having half his homerun total and 20 less rbi's. had pence been playing the last month he'd be a qualifier for the batting title, and possibly leading it, but even that probably wouldn't have been enough.
Getting rid of Willy T gave Pence an immediate chance to shine, so for that reason alone it was a good trade. This guy has superstar potential for sure.
So ya'll are saying that if Pence somehow qualifies (likely) AND wins the NL batting title (possible) that Braun will STILL win ROY? That would be some story. Not saying I disagree, but it would be quite the dilemma if Pence pulls it off and Bruan ends up also qualifying and finishing just a few BA % points behind Pence.
no doubter on Braun. They've both been great. But Braun has been undoubtedly better--especially considering that neither of them are anything super-special defensively.
Compare Wandy's home numbers to Santana's record against Cleveland this year (0-5 4.39 ERA) and Wandy is far and away the superior pitcher.
it'd be a story if pence won simply because of batting average. heck braun even has a slightly higher batting average. considering the closeness in the amount of ab's each has, one qualifying for the title and the other not, shouldn't really be a consideration. braun simply has better numbers though both would easily win ROY almost any other year.
His leadership is questionable with him getting kicked out of the Arizona Fall League last year, but hopefully he has grown up since then. Biggio made the same mistake when he was younger, and he turned out just fine. Of course, he wasn't kicked out of any leagues or anything, but you get my point.
