JABO: Boosting Miguel Sano’s Case for Rookie of the Year
There was a time this season when it looked like Blue Jays infielder Devon Travis would have a serious case for winning the American League Rookie of the Year award. What that is, more than anything else, is a reminder that the regular season is really super long, but you can say this much — a heck of a race has emerged. Though many are understandably more focused on the games at hand than the end-of-season awards, this is a special class, and at the top you’ll find the Indians’ Francisco Lindor, the Astros’ Carlos Correa, and Miguel Sano of the Minnesota Twins.
There are others. Of course there are others. There have been more than three good rookies in the AL, and I don’t mean to take anything away from anyone, but barring a complete surprise, this is going to come down to that core group. Lindor has helped Cleveland try to make a desperate playoff run. Correa has helped Houston stay in a spot to advance. And Sano has helped keep the improbable Twins alive.
Now, if you take those three, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to take the shortstops, Lindor and Correa, first. A right-thinking person might well rank Sano in third, were the voting to take place today. Most simply, Sano has played in about 20 fewer games. He’s not about to catch up, and that’s an eighth of a whole season, which matters when you’re talking about guys who haven’t been up since Opening Day. Voters tend to prefer a mix of both quality and quantity.
And Sano, for the most part, has been a DH. He’s been a hell of a DH! Really good DH. But it’s a DH against two shortstops, and there’s no more important position than shortstop, save perhaps for catcher, which is a whole other weird thing. Correa’s been a fine defensive shortstop. Lindor’s been an outstanding defensive shortstop. Their bats have been strong, too, so it’s not just an appeal to defense. Lindor and Correa have well-roundedness in their favor. Sano’s more of a one-trick pony.
He’s been phenomenal at that one trick.
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Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Especially with Lindor, you’d expect both players’ being in the AL Central would mean they’re facing more or less the same starting pitchers. What would be interesting is to see how much of the discrepancy between the pitchers they’ve faced is caused by relief pitchers (suggesting that teams are putting in their best guys to get Sano out).
I would guess a decent part of the difference is the mutual games between the two teams right? Sano has gone against Kluber twice and Carrasco once, while Lindor faced Twins starting pitchers
It makes sense, generally, that he’s seeing tough pitching. Cleveland (Kluber, Carrasco, Salazar) and the White Sox (Sale, Rondon, Quintana) both have pretty good rotations and KC has that pen. Verlander is still around too.
That being said, I don’t really care. He’s a DH and the other guys are SSs. The highest WAR of the group is Lindor, so lets start there. Along with the tangible statistics where he’s impacted the team, his energy has also been a huge part of why Cleveland is about 4 games out of the wild card right now instead of looking at a top 10 draft pick in 2016.
Agree, I’ve seen quite a bit of Lindor, as good as he has been with the bat, it really seems like he prevents pretty much a hit per game, at least compared with the below average shortstops the Indians have featured in the recent past