We have been polling MLBTR readers on this year’s Major League Baseball awards finalists throughout the week (minus the American League Cy Young, which will belong to the Indians’ Shane Bieber). We’ll conclude with the AL Rookie of the Year, an honor that will go to either Mariners center fielder Kyle Lewis, White Sox center fielder Luis Robert or Astros right-hander Cristian Javier. Here’s a look at what they did in 2020…
- The 25-year-old Lewis had a big season at the plate, hitting .262/.364/.434 (126 wRC+) with 11 home runs, five stolen bases and 1.7 fWAR/1.4 bWAR in 242 plate appearances.
- Robert, 23, got off to hot offensive start before fading. He still ended up with a respectable line of .233/.302/.436 (101 wRC+) with 11 HRs and nine steals over 227 PA. Robert combined his league-average offense with tremendous defense (eight DRS, 2.6 UZR) en route to 1.5 fWAR/1.6 bWAR.
- Javier, also 23, helped make up for the Astros’ loss of Justin Verlander to injury. He made 12 appearances (10 starts) in his first year and registered a 3.48 ERA/4.94 FIP with 8.94 K/9 and 2.98 BB/9 across 54 1/3 innings.
Which of these three should win AL Rookie of the Year? (Poll link for app users)
Both Robert and Lewis fell off later in the season, but Javier was great wire to wire for a team that really needed it.
Get real. He threw 54 innings of nearly 5 FIP ball. I’m surprised he’s even a finalist
i care about real ERA, not garbage like FIP. pitchers are supposed to prevent runs, not prevent fake runs.
Lmao go to bed
Pitchers do prevent runs but so does the defense. To give that much credit to Javier while completely discounting the team defense around him is pretty messed up. Especially with that 1.8 hr/9
Did Lewis‘ and Robert‘s defense fall off later in the season?
Javier has a good year, but Lewis and Robert should not finish below him.
I wouldn’t say FIP is a garbage stat. It should be used as part of the evaluation process looking forward. His FIP, BABiP and strand rate, for example, indicate some luck this year. His HR rate is much higher than the minors, and his 9% SwStr isn’t great. That said, he has good stuff and was rushed up. I have him as a back-end starter, with his ERA rising but his FIP decreasing. None of that matters though. Awards should be based on what you did, not what should have happened, or what might happen. We agree on that. I still don’t believe that gets him ahead of the other two. Lewis gets my vote.
Even his “real” ERA isn’t that eye popping
Yea but to what degree? Zack Greinke had a 4.03 ERA but was he really worse than J.A. Happ and his 3.47 ERA?
Sure, his FIP was not great, but I don’t think awards should be based off of numbers like FIP. If you are playing an actual game and your starter goes 6 strong innings, allowing no runs but having constant traffic, would you consider that to be a bad start because they allowed a lot of base runners? Or would you praise them for pitching well? The extra runs FIP projects he should have had does not affect his outstanding rookie season as far as awards go, in my opinion. Perhaps it foreshadows next year, but this year is done with and he allowed 3.48 runs to cross the plate per 9 innings pitched. He didn’t allow nearly 5 runs per 9. That said, I still think the award should go to Lewis.
I’m not saying base it off his FIP. And I didn’t say his FIP took away from his great season.
I’m saying when examining players for an award. You cant say stuff like “Lewis and Robert fell off” basing it only on offensive stats but then discard Javier having his defense support him because you don’t want to consider the fact his pitching results were aided by the defense around him.
Im not saying Javier didn’t have a great year. All three players had great years. Also, I agree with you when it comes to Lewis.
Considering his age, lack of experience, AND the divisions he was facing (AL/NL West), his pitching #’s were pretty impressive. Not Kershaw impressive, but impressive nonetheless.
I was thinking an option could be none of the above. Bring on the NL candidates
Both Lewis and Robert are better than the NL options where a reliever is the best option
Robert’s numbers werent even that good in the end.
Let me edit your comment Haworth: “Both Lewis and Robert aren’t better than the NL option where the best reliever in 2020 is the best option.”
Haha Rangers is right on. A reliever that had a year that was not just amazing for a rookie, but a year that would be considered a banner year for many relief pitchers.
I would have went with Ryan Mountcastle.
Why, because of his whopping 0.5 WAR or his far below average defense?
Mountcastle got the Hayes treatment
Even though he has been floating around prospect rankings for a while, we still gotta remember Mountcastle is only 23. That’s scary.
i dont like how he his dismissed out of hand for having no real position. Vlad got to #1 on prospect boards on the strength of his bat alone, and Cruz is considered a serious FA target depite only being a DH. sure the lack of defense hurts him, but if he can hit he will play and start.
In all fairness, Moucastle never had the offensive numbers Vlad had in the minors.
I never… ever want to see Kyle Lewis play us again. The Kyle’s just love to kill us in the A.L West… Kyle Lewis, Kyle Seager, Kyle Tucker, Kyle Gibson… the list goes on. Just the eye test alone tells me it’s him, not to mention the numbers. Cornerstone of that M’s team for years to come… mommy.
Dalbec
batting ave – .263
OBP – .359
OPS – .600
PA 92 – 8 HR
Roberts
.233 / .302 / .436
PA 227 – 11 HR
Dalbec put up superior BA / OBP / OPS, and his HR rate was nearly double. Dalbec may not deserve to win the ROY award, but a case can be made that he should have been a finalist.
He had fewer than half the plate appearances. Volume matters when considering rate stats.
Isn’t it a bit awkward then that awards a handed out after a 60-game season?
Not awkward at all to hand out awards after a 60 game season. After all, all 30 teams had the same amount of games.
In addition to what you said, which I agree with (fwiw), the NFL hands out awards after a 16 game season. JUST SAYING…
Downside is Robert showed a lot more defensive chops off than dalbec did.
OPS is On base Plus Slugging. You’re listing Slugging as OPS, though we all got what you meant.
Dalbec’s OPS was .959, not .600.
I knew he wouldn’t be a candidate, but Jared Walsh had a very solid season
Arozarena
Voting takes place before the postseason and his regular season numbers were nothing to be excited about
His playing time was limited by Covid-19. His regular season numbers are indeed something to get excited about. Ask the Rays.
The Rays NEVER faced him in the REGULAR season.
He’s going to be an extremely popular preseason pick to win the 2021 AL ROY (if he’s still eligible, and I believe he is).
A shame he won’t squeak out the award in 2020. It would be neat to have a two-time Rookie of the Year.
they made a rule that said that wasnt allowed sadly. but i do agree there.
He is still eligible, although it highlights a bit of a flaw in the rules. In 2021, he’ll be 26 playing in his third MLB season, on his second team, second league, and with two postseason runs already. Indeed, he even won an MVP in one of the postseason series. He has 190 MLB PAs already to his name across the regular and postseason. With that much experience and name recognition, he won’t exactly be on equal footing with other real rookies, but the rules are what they are.
Reminds me of the year Bob Hamelin won it. Not very impressed. I’ll take Lewis. I guess.
Too bad Willie Castro of the Tigers only appeared in 36 games. Very impressive (defense still needs some work) .346 6 HR 24 RBI
Shane Bieber – major league minimum salary. Uncontested Cy Young winner.
What happened to Rakes All Night Day Year… Randy Arozarena does not qualify?
Willi Castro will be better than any of the three
This is not an overly inspiring group of candidates. I ended up going with Lewis but none of the 3 jumped off the page by any means. They all needed more games to separate themselves. It’s too bad the Red Sox waited so long to call up Houck & Dalbec. Dalbec could have easily hit 20+ HRs over 60 games. He reminded me a lot of what Alonso did in 2019 in his limited time in the majors.
While playoff stats don’t count for ROY stats, I thought that Randy Arozarena did enough in September to get his name on this list as well. I believe he hit 10 HRs in the month of Sept alone, not to mention for good average too.
Arozarena had 7 HR in 64 AB’s. So, not 10 in Sept. alone. He did have 10 in fraction of Oct./Nov., however.
Dalbec had 8 HR’s in 80 ABs. The latter is nice but not necessarily eye-popping. Plenty of people do that and then go on to a dozen or fifteen over 225-250 AB’s. Saying he “could have easily hit 20+” is an extremely bold assertion. We’ll see how he does in ’21.
Willi Castro should be one of the finalist was on pace to smash both Lewis and Roberts numbers only 20 and 21 less games then the 2 and was only -5 in home runs to the both And only -7 and -4 in rbi’s almost 100 AB’s less then them also Castro’s batting line goes .349/.381/.550 ops .938 6hr 24rbi 129ab oh and only 2 less extra base hits then Kyle Lewis So I still think Castro should definitely be in The Conversation especially considering it was a shortened season Anyways But whatever I guess that’s what he gets for being on One of the worst teams right now