ROY Season 2

Season 2 – AL ROY – Tie (Doc Robinson/Rick Jones)

Rick Jones
ROY Tearm: Rochester
Current Team: Retired before season 12 final season was with Philadephia Black Sox
Career Stats: 176 HR 758 RBI .282 AVG .840 OPS
Career Awards: Gold Glove LF

Unlike the Hall of famers that won ROY in season 1, season 2 was the year of “The solid career”. None of this year’s players reached the heights of their ROY season.

To win the ROY Rick Jones put up a stat line of 21 HR 90 RBI .286 AVG

Rick Jones won the award playing for Rochester and continued on there until a season 5 trade shipped him to the Toledo Mud Hens. The deal saw Rochester get JJ Banks and Toledo get Jones and Victor Nagy. Rochester appears to have narrowly won the deal as JJ Banks has put together a solid career line of 144HR 483 RBI with a .280 average in 5 ML seasons (on pace to eclipse Jones career marks). He is currently playing for TB. While Nagy only pitched a 159 innings in the majors to the tune of a 6.91 ERA, he currently resides at Louisville’s AAA team. Jones played 5 seasons for the Toledo franchise before leaving as a FA in S10 to sign with the Black Sox for who he played with until retirement.

Doc Robinson
ROY Team: Wichita Bad Boys (Now Tampa Bay Torpedoes)
Current Team: Dover
Career Stats: 75-87 4.42 ERA
Career Awards: None other than ROY

Doc broke in with the Bad Boys in season 2 and pitched brilliantly to the tune of 14-6 record and 3.36 ERA. He stayed with the Wichita organization through season 7 when things got a little interesting. Robinson was traded to the NY in season 7 for Norman Turner, C. Mienkiewtz and Dan Broussard. Mienkiewtz was a ML washout only pitching in 2.2 ML innings and has since retired. Broussard an OF power hitter and N. Turner a solid hitting C are still in the majors. However, Wichita never benefited from their services, as both players were immediately traded back to NY in season 8 (insert your own joke about Radek loving his players so much you can only trade him guys he’s already had). This deal was a two for one Wichita received Rondell Brock who currently pitches for Rochester and is 45-41 with a 4.99 ERA for his career. However, Brock is still relatively young (26) with strong ratings, expect a couple of all-star appearances and seasons with a sub-4 ERA before his career ends. So in the end Wichita traded Doc For Brock which was a good deal for Bad Boys.

It turns out NY is not where Doc’s story ends he actually only played one seasons in the Big Apple before being traded to Pittsburgh. In return NY received Louie Cruz who currently plays for TB and is a top of the order bat with average SS defense and Jay Nixon who is currently only 23 and the property of Col (AAA). He is a pitcher with control issues but the rest of his ratings suggest he’ll have the ability to crave out a ML career.

Doc left Pitts before season 10 and signed with the Black Sox (now Dover) where he continues to be part of the ML franchise.


Season 2 – NL ROY – Ben Dipoto
ROY Team: Pelicans
Current Team: LA Baja Racers
Career Stats: 149 HR 634 RBI .293 AVG .842 OPS
Career Awards: None other than ROY

Like Dipoto’s AL counterparts he put together a solid ML career, which currently stands at 11 seasons. For his career he possed an above-average bat for a CF, however was not able to take home any other hardware after his ROY award.

Dipoto’s first three seasons were spent with the Charlotte franchise (now NO), then he was traded in a large deal to Washington. The centerpiece of the deal for Charlotte was Sammy Moraga a beast of a C. Who still plays for the Char/NO franchise and thus far has put up the following stat line: 334HR 845RBI .303 AVG. In return Washington got three solid Mler who are still in the league today: Ben Diopto, Josh Franco & Buddy Valentine.
Franco currently plays for Rochester and has 158HR 604 RBI for his career. His trek to Rochester ran through Louisville (as a lot of players do). Franco was traded to Louisville as the centerpiece for Andera Mesa and then was traded Rochester as the centerpiece of the Bob Creek deal. Valentine currently resides in Colorado and has 162HR 453 RBI .280 average for his carreer. While Moraga is clearly the best player in the deal it is tough to fault Mdukes for getting three players still in the league 8 seasons later.

Dipoto played in Washington season 3-8 before a three year stint as FA with the NB Yorkies before finally moving to LA as a FA this past off-season. As mentioned above all three players grinded out solid to good careers however none of the three managed a single all-star appearance.