Awards Week has a way of exposing just how unpredictable baseball can be, and Tom Verducci’s latest guesses for the BBWAA honors drive that point home fast.
The biggest theme running through the six non-rookie player awards, including the new Reliever of the Year honor in each league, is how unlikely these paths were from the start. Verducci’s read on the field leads to a striking common thread: humble beginnings. The two MVPs were both traded as teenagers, while the four pitchers he expects to land Cy Young and Reliever of the Year recognition were all passed over in the first round and had to wait anywhere from two to seven rounds to hear their names called after coming out of non-major college programs.
The list of those routes says plenty on its own: traded by the Dodgers at age 19 without playing an affiliated game; traded by the Mets at age 19 after six games in A ball; a seventh-round pick out of Northeastern after 219 players were selected; a second-round pick out of Crowder Junior College after 62 players were selected; on a fourth organization after starting as an 11th round pick out of the University of North Florida after 319 players were picked; and a third-round pick out of Gardner-Webb after 96 players were picked.
That same theme shows up in the rookie race, where the numbers are strong enough to make the omissions feel almost absurd. Mets right-hander Nolan McLean went 12- with a 3.16 ERA and 194 strikeouts, becoming only the fifth rookie since 1969 to hit those marks.
The other four all finished first in Rookie of the Year voting - John Montefusco, Dwight Gooden and Hideo Nomo - or second, in the case of Kodai Senga. McLean, though, didn’t even crack the three finalists.
Instead, voters went with position players Carson Benge, Sal Stewart and JJ Wetherholt in the NL race.
The American League picture is crowded too. Chase DeLauter of the Guardians is only the ninth qualified rookie since 2015 to post an OPS+ of 131 or better, and every one of the previous eight won the award. DeLauter, though, is not among the finalists.
Verducci sees all of it as more evidence that the sport is tilting younger. With rule changes and the rise in velocity and spin over the last five to 10 years, baseball has become even more of a young man’s game. This rookie class, he argues, is more proof of that than ever.
And that has consequences beyond Awards Week. As the hot stove season gets going, teams are more willing than they were a decade ago to trust a rookie rather than hand money to mid-30s veterans serving as stopgaps.
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