On the Fantasy Baseball Gurus Show, Mike Podhorzer got to discuss the hot topic of who should be the ROY so far, Ellsbury or Longoria. It appears to be a close call, but in reality it is a whitewash.

On the show yesterday, from which I have given up my co-host duties but still recommend, there was some interesting discussion on whether Longoria or Ellsbury should be the AL Rookie of the Year. An argument was made for both and both had solid cases.

However there are a few variables that are well suited to this exact comparison, namely the Baseball Prospectus metrics known as WARP and VORP.   WARP is a measure of the number of wins above a replacement level player that the given player has produced, as measured by the number of runs created. That is a simplistic summary, so if you want more info check out Baseball Prospectus. The WARP formula includes both offensive and defensive contributions.

Longoria has generated 5.0 WARP, or five wins above a replacement player. This is largely driven by stellar defense, as in his half season he has already saved 19 fielding runs above replacement. Ellsbury has generated 3.0 WARP, a full 2 wins worse than Longoria. This is not a small difference.

When looked at from a purely offensive level, we can use VORP or their Value Over Replacement Player metric. This metric measures the number of runs over a replacement player based on offense alone without defense. Longoria is ranked 51st in baseball with 21.1. Ellsbury is ranked 105 with a 13.5 VORP.

One last metric is EQA or Equivalent Average. This metric is a measure of the total offensive input per out, taking into account various normalizing factors. Longoria is 8th in the AL with a .306 EQA. Ellsbury is at .268.

This is pretty much a rout. It is Longoria by a large margin, and given the trends of both players, it may end up being an actual rout in the voting.