MLB awards season is here, which means it's time for my annual breakdown of the hardware that will be handed out on MLB Network each day this week. It all starts on Monday with the Rookie of the Year Awards, two votes that have very little suspense. The Mets' Jacob de Grom and Jose Abreu of the White Sox are going to win. But just because I'm conceding that point doesn't mean that's necessarily the way my hypothetical vote went.
Let's start in the American League, where it's been a foregone conclusion that Abreu would win since the All*Star break. It wasn't such a lock in the beginning of the season. For the first three months, it was a two-horse race between Abreu and Masahiro Tanaka. Tanaka was even being touted as the possible AL Cy Young Award winner at the All*Star break. But after Tanaka got hurt, it was clear this award was going to Abreu. It's going to be as much of a runaway as it was for Wil Myers last year and Mike Trout the year before. It'll be a shock if it's not unanimous.
Since August, the only question surrounding the AL Rookie of the Year race was who would finish second. I bet there are still a lot of voters who put Tanaka somewhere on their ballots, but it wouldn't have been fair to the other rookies to do that. But as the season went on and the Yankees continued to struggle, I got to thinking about another Yankees pitcher who was making a strong case for himself. And sure enough, Dellin Betances is one of the finalists. Because he deserves to be. I'd bet he finished second. That's where he would've been on my ballot.
I was pretty sure Betances would be a finalist, but who would be the third one? Well, it's Angels starter Matt Shoemaker. I didn't really know much about Shoemaker until late in the year, but he ended up 16-4 for the team that had the best record in baseball. The Angels had so many injuries to their rotation that Shoemaker ended up their No. 2 starter by the end of the season. Definitely deserving of being a finalist, but he likely finished third.
If you were to handicap the eight award races and rank them from 1-8 in terms of which one is the biggest lock, Jose Abreu for AL Rookie would probably be No. 2 behind Clayton Kershaw for NL Cy Young. (It's even more of a lock than Kershaw for MVP.) I think my "vote" will probably fall in line with the actual voters: 1. Abreu, 2. Betances, 3. Shoemaker. I'm a little surprised George Springer of the Astros wasn't among the Top 3, though. In fact, replace Shoemaker with Springer on my ballot.
My vote differs slightly in the National League, though. Jacob de Grom is the favorite, but he's not the guy I'd vote for. In my opinion, the best rookie in the National League this season from Opening Day until the end of September was the Reds' Billy Hamilton. It's not a knock on de Grom or any anti-Met bias I'm showing here. I just think Billy Hamilton had a better overall season.
Hamilton flashed his blazing speed during a September call-up in 2013, leaving everyone hungry for more. Heading into Spring Training, it was expected that he'd take over the center field job, which is exactly what he did. The Reds' leadoff hitter from Opening Day on, he finished second in the NL with 56 stolen bases. He also led all NL rookies in runs, hits and doubles, and played Gold Glove-caliber defense. Most importantly, he played 152 games. That's a rookie who contributed to his team's success from Day 1.
The critics will point to Hamilton's .250 batting average as being too low for a leadoff hitter. And they'll also note that his production went down in September, while that might've been de Grom's best month. But Billy Hamilton's late-season swoon coincided with his team's. I don't know if it's coincidence or if the Reds struggled because he did, but I think that stat points to Billy Hamilton's importance to the Cincinnati Reds. He was nearly as integral to his team's success as Abreu was.
Then there's this point. Being in the Majors at the start of the season isn't a requirement to be Rookie of the Year. I know that. Mike Trout wasn't called up until May, and Wil Myers didn't make his debut until June. But it's something that should be considered in a close race. It's what made the difference last year, as Jose Fernandez won over the flashier Yasiel Puig in part because he did it for six months instead of four. Hamilton contributed to his team's success from Day 1. Jacob de Grom was in the minors for the first six weeks of the season and only made 22 starts. With everything else being almost equal, that's why I give the edge to Hamilton.
So, I've got Hamilton winning this two-horse race, which is nothing against Jacob de Grom. My brother-in-law actually went to his Major League debut against the Yankees in mid-May. De Grom emerged as the Mets' de facto ace in September, when he went 3-0 with a 1.32 ERA and had one start where he struck out the first eight hitters of the game (the most amazing part about that to me is the first guy he didn't strike out was the opposing pitcher). He's guaranteed himself a place alongside Matt Harvey, Zack Wheeler and, presumably, Noah Syndergaard, in a stacked 2015 Mets rotation that looks formidable.
Kolten Wong of the Cardinals is the third finalist, which means he finished third. Frankly, I had forgotten Wong was technically a rookie until they announced the finalists last week. He played in the World Series last year. That's why I forgot. But then I remembered trading David Freese and moving Matt Carpenter to third was part of an elaborate master plan to make the "rookie" Wong their starting second baseman this season. My general dislike of the St. Louis Cardinals and how annoying they are also made me kind of just ignore their existence until they showed up in the NLCS yet again. I don't think Wong was the third-best rookie in the National League this season, though. He wasn't even the best rookie second baseman. That would be Joe Panik.
It's not going to be the way the actual vote turns out, but I would've put Hamilton first and de Grom second on my ballot. I definitely wouldn't have put Wong third, though. I'd go with Diamondbacks shortstop Chris Owings, who had a pretty good year for a pretty bad team.
Assuming that Abreu and de Grom are the winners, though, both the White Sox and Mets would be ending pretty long Rookie of the Year droughts. The Mets haven't had a Rookie of the Year since Dwight Gooden in 1984. Fun fact, de Grom would be the fifth Met to win the award, and Darryl Strawberry is the only one of the five that wasn't a starting pitcher. The White Sox, meanwhile, haven't had a Rookie of the Year winner since Ozzie Guillen in 1985. I'm pretty sure the White Sox Rookie of the Year/Royals pennant connection is just a coincidence, though.
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