Announcers usually call Okajima a “deceptive” pitcher, partially because of his oddball delivery—which, as you know if you’ve ever watched any nationally broadcast Red Sox games over the past year, involves a crazy head-dip that just sends Joe Morgan, Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, and Jon Miller into a veritable tizzy.

But there’s another deceptive aspect about him this season—his numbers.

Yesterday, I was watching the game at the gym when bench coach Brad Mills, acting in Terry Francona’s stead, brought Okajima in with the bases loaded and two out. I wondered at this, since Okajima has allowed so many inherited runners to score already this season. In fact, I more than wondered. I lamented. Out loud, right there on the elliptical machine, in front of everyone. And lo and behold, on the second pitch of his outing, Okie gave up a grand slam and, consequently, the lead.

Bizarrely, Boston has continued to use Okajima in these sorts of situations even though he has struggled in them pretty much all year. He comes in, lets everyone else’s runners score, and then promptly gets out of the inning. But of course, due to the wacky rules of earned runs, his 0.93 ERA does not reflect these struggles.

He’s had 14 inherited runners to deal with this season—already half as many as he dealt with in all of last season. Eleven of the 14 have scored. That’s the worst mark in the majors. (Last year, just 4 of the 28 inherited runners scored.) Yet his stats are all pretty much in line with last year’s performance—and in several cases, this year’s numbers actually look better. The one exception? He’s giving up more flyballs:

Disturbingly, that freakishly low BABIP suggests to me that the situation should, by rights, be even worse. [Shudder]

So have hitters finally figured him out? Is the deceptive delivery no longer deceiving anyone? I don’t think you can say that, based on his performance or on his numbers, though that is clearly the worry in the Hub today. The fact is that after Okajima lets those inherited runners score, he promptly goes back to being a badass. Guys don’t have WHIPs of 0.88 when they’ve been figured out. If Okajima’s secret had been discovered, why would his batting average skyrocket from .143 when he’s leading off the inning to .280 when there are runners on? Why would the first batter he faces reach—as has happened in 7 of 18 chances (hat tip to Nick Cafardo)—and the rest go down quietly? If opposing hitters had really figured him out, wouldn’t they be lighting him up across the board? It doesn’t make sense.

I’m not sure what’s wrong with Okajima and his okie dokie, or why the problem only seems to happen with runners on base. But until someone figures it out, I wish the Red Sox would go back to bringing Okajima at the start of the 8th instead of midway through the 7th. It would make this song a lot more fun to sing along to.

Because game time is upon us. Because great musical compositions deserve an audience. Because … well, we don’t need a reason to bring you what is, without a doubt, the most fantastic song a relief pitcher has ever chosen to accompany him as he enters a game.In case you haven’t been paying attention, Red Sox reliever Hideki Okajima recently debuted this little ditty, called Okajima Okie-Dokie.

If you haven’t already, give it a listen.
Okajima Okie-Dokie.

And you might want to check this out, too. Just because.

Compared to last year, ranking the rookies for this season is pretty boring, since as Coley points out, most of the best rookies were in the NL, but even in the NL the choice is obvious given Ryan Braun’s utter dominance.

But I have been a bit surprised at some of the names that keep getting mentioned, as well as some of the names who haven’t been mentioned much.

So I decided to rank the top 15 rookies together in one group, including players from both leagues. Here is what I came up with:

1. Ryan Braun (NL)
2. Troy Tulowitzki (NL)
3. Daisuke Matsuzaka (AL)
4. Hunter Pence (NL)
5. Dustin Pedroia (AL)
6. Jeremy Guthrie (AL)
7. James Loney (NL)
8. Brian Bannister (AL)
9. Chris Young (NL)
10. Kyle Kendrick (NL)
11. Yovanni Gallardo (NL)
12. Peter Moylan (NL)
13. Reggie Willits (AL)
14. Joakim Soria (AL)
15. Hideki Okajima (AL)

Sure enough, 8 out of my top 12 rookies hail from the National League. Although I’m not sure if this necessarily means good things for inter-league balance, since the Red Sox and the Yankees are probably just going to sign away all these guys as soon as they hit free agency.

Also, as you can see, I agree with Coley’s contention that at least based on pure numbers, Troy Tulowitzki was really unlucky to have his rookie year in the same season as Ryan Braun. But in actuality I don’t really feel too bad for him, given that he benefitted greatly from playing half his games in Coors Field, posting a ridiculous .942/.720 home/road OPS split.

Hunter Pence had a heck of the year, hitting for both average and power and stealing bases as well, and even with his injury woes he still managed to play in 108 games and log 456 at-bats. He’s not the Rookie of the Year, but he has a heck of a future ahead of him.

After Braun, Dodgers first-baseman James Loney was actually the second-best rookie in the National League this season, and did get into 96 games, but couldn’t make as much of a contribution to his team as Pence or Tulowitzki since was pointlessly blocked for the first two months owing to Ned Colletti’s foolish decision to resign Nomar Garciaparra despite the fact that Loney led all of baseball in batting average at AAA in 2006.

Frankly, I don’t understand why anyone is even considering Delmon Young, and as you can see, I’ve left him off my list. In fact, he wouldn’t even make my top 20. Delmon Young led all rookies in at-bats with 654, yet only hit 13 home runs, walked a mere 26 times, and posted a woeful .723 OPS. 10 other rookies hit more home runs, most of them in far fewer at-bats. Out of the eight rookies who qualified for a batting title, five had a higher OBP than Young, including teammate Akinori Iwamura. The bottom line is, if you get 654 at-bats and OPS .723 as a corner outfielder, you are in fact severely hurting your team, even if you are a veteran. You are certainly not anywhere close to being the Rookie of the Year!

I’m also not sure why Hideki Okajima gets mentioned so much. Sure he had a great year, but Peter Moylan was by far the best rookie relief pitcher this year (although he was in the NL), and even in his own league Joakim Soria of the Royals put up nearly identical numbers while posting 17 saves to Okajima’s 5.

A guy who certainly deserves more consideration is D-Backs centerfielder Chris Young. He’s not the Rookie of the Year because his batting average and on-base percentage were atrocious, but he did contribute greatly at a defensive skill position while playing every day, and chipped in 32 home runs along with 27 stolen bases.

I’ve saved perhaps my most controversial call until last: I’m going to have to go with Daisuke Matsuzaka over Dustin Pedroia as my 2007 AL Rookie of the Year. First of all, I don’t buy the whole argument that Japanese players shouldn’t be eligible for ROY consideration given all their experience in Japan. Having watched a lot of Japanese baseball, I can say firsthand that it is nowhere near the level of the Majors. That’s why Matsuzaka’s ERA was 4.40 this year and not 2.35. Also, Matsuzaka was only 26, which isn’t really that old. If an American player gets lots of experience in the minors and then has a breakout season at 27 or 28, we don’t say he should be ineligible for the award.

But more importantly, Matsuzaka had a better year than Pedroia. Sure, he wasn’t *quite* as good as some of the more delierious Boston fans might have expected, but was still one of the better pitchers in the American League, posting 15 wins, pitching over 200 innings, and striking out 201 batters. Sure, Pedroia had a great season, but was he even the most valuable rookie on his own team? Put another way, would the Red Sox rather have played through this past season without Daisuke Matsuzaka, or without Dustin Pedroia? I think it’s clear that Matsuzaka made a greater contribution as a rookie in the AL.