I was one of 30 people with a vote for the American League Rookie of the Year award. I voted for Aaron Judge. We all voted for Aaron Judge. Not only was Judge’s win unanimous — it was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made in my entire life. When you first get voting privileges within the BBWAA, people will warn you that it can be surprisingly difficult. These awards matter, to players and families and teams and fans, and voters need to give them far more thought than an outsider might think is reasonable. When you have an actual vote, suddenly it feels so much more real, and you can think yourself in circles. It’s no longer hypothetical. It’s no longer just firing off a tweet or three. When you have a vote, there are stakes.

Yet picking Judge was easier than picking shampoo over soap. It was easier than making my coffee with water over oil. Rarely has an award had so obvious a candidate. Judge was so good a rookie he’s a finalist for the league MVP. He just led all of baseball in wins above replacement. Judge wound up at 8.2 WAR; our rookie filter on the leaderboards isn’t perfect, but, using it anyway, there have only ever been four better rookie seasons. And Judge beat the next-best rookie in either league by 4.2 WAR; there have only ever been two bigger gaps. Mike Trout was absurd in 2012. Cy Blanton was absurd in 1935. Aaron Judge was absurd in 2017. Rookies aren’t supposed to do what he did.

It’s no surprise all the voters were on the same page with regard to Aaron Judge. It would be inexcusable not to give him first place. But I was apparently the only voter to give second place to Jordan Montgomery. I didn’t think much about what the other voters would do, because first is all anyone truly cares about. But now I feel obligated to explain myself. You can even read along, if you can bring yourself to think about down-ballot rookie votes. It’s a niche interest.

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We’re currently in the midst of a lull in the baseball calendar. The offseason has officially arrived and yet the Hot Stove hasn’t really been lit yet. I suppose I could get excited for Awards season, but the painfully slow roll out and the heated arguments wear me down fairly quickly.

So, instead, I try to make my own baseball entertainment. For me, one exercise is simply to look over the league and attempt to identify the players about whom I’m most excited for next season. Not superstars, necessarily: everyone is always excited to watch the game’s brightest lights. And not prospects who haven’t yet reached the Show, either. I’m not really qualified to talk about those players in a meaningful way, so I’ll leave those players to Eric (and Chris) and all the scouts out there.

Outside of those groups, though, there are still hundreds of players from which to choose. I’ll be excited to watch more than these 10, of course, but in surveying the league, these are ones who caught my eye. Note that this isn’t in any particular order. I’m equally excited about all 10. Perhaps you’ll agree with me, perhaps not. Feel free to conduct your own exercise and let me know who your 10 players are in the comments.

Rafael Devers

The new Red Sox third baseman enjoyed a meteoric debut month, swatting his way to a 224 wRC+ in his July call-up. That covered just 27 plate appearances, though, and as we moved into August and September, he cooled off significantly. He hit safely from his second game (July 26) through his eighth game (August 4). At that point, he was hitting .389/.463/.694, for a 205 wRC+. From August 5 through the end of the regular season, though, he hit .263/.312/.441, for a 92 wRC+. Doom and gloom, right? Not entirely, no, because in Boston’s abbreviated playoff run, he was one of the few bright spots, slashing .364/.429/.909. He slugged two homers — one off of Francisco Liriano and one off of Ken Giles. The latter was of the inside-the-park variety, but it was impressive nonetheless:

So, it’s hard to know what to expect from young Devers. Andrew Benintendi was similarly hyped coming into last campaign and was decidedly mediocre for large swaths of the season. Will that be Devers’ fate too? And what of his fielding? He made seven throwing errors and seven fielding errors in his short time in Boston. If the Red Sox acquire a legit first baseman this winter (or a legit DH and move Hanley Ramirez to first) and it turns out that Devers can’t hack at it at third, the Red Sox will have a conundrum to solve.

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Last night, the Rookie of the Year awards were announced, with Cody Bellinger and Aaron Judge getting every first place vote in their respective league, as expected. The rest of the ballots were more interesting, with plenty of options for second and third place in both leagues. Eno posted his NL ROY ballot last night, explaining why he went with Rhys Hoskins and Paul Dejong as his post-Bellinger votes.

I also had an NL ROY ballot this year, but it differed from what Eno turned in, and in fact, differed from what everyone else turned in too. I was the only voter to include Reds RHP Luis Castillo on a ballot, as I put him third behind Bellinger and Dejong, leaving off Hoskins, among others. And while I know down-ballot Rookie of the Year voting isn’t the most exciting thing going on right now, I think it is useful to use that vote as a way to think about how we balance quantity and quality when determining past value.

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Pitching and defense didn’t win in 2017. Offense did. Specifically, launching juiced balls into the air did.

That’s an oversimplification, of course. Charlie Morton played a significant role in winning two Game 7s. Justin Verlander was generally great. Pitching and defense were certainly part of it. But an examination of wRC+ and FanGraphs’ Offensive Runs Above Average (Off) statistic for 2017 playoff teams reveals a noteworthy finding.

Of the three clubs that won 100 games in the regular season and the two clubs that met in the World Series, each finished in the top four by FanGraphs’ Off and wRC+. The historically good Astros offense led the club to a World Series title.

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Author’s note: this post was updated to reflect changes caused by trades (Ozuna, Piscotty, etc.)

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the St. Louis Cardinals farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from my own observations. The KATOH (stats-only) statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of my prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

Last Year’s Cardinals List

60 FV Prospects

As the baseball calendar turned over to 2017, Alex Reyes was arguably the best pitching prospect in the game and set to be the brightest young star on a likely playoff contender. Instead, he would need Tommy John before all of his teammates had even arrived for spring training. It was a disappointing twist in an already eventful, young career.

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Javier Baez strikes out. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s his whole thing, but it’s kind of a big part of his whole thing. Picture Javier Baez. Picture him hitting, not running or slapping a tag down on some poor, unsuspecting opponent. You see that swing? We’re all picturing the same swing. Sometimes that swing connects and it hits the ball a very far distance. Many more times, that swing whiffs. It finds nothing but the disappointing freedom of air. I don’t need to further explain Baez to you; his reputation is well established. He just homered 23 times, and twice more in the playoffs. He just struck out 144 times, and 11 times more in the playoffs. He wound up with a contact rate of 66%.

So Baez strikes out. I’m here to ask you about one strikeout in particular. Really, it’s two strikeouts, I guess, but they’re virtually identical, and one is from Game 5 of the recent NLCS. I didn’t write about this immediately because it didn’t seem relevant, not within the greater, ongoing postseason context. The postseason is dead now. Now we’re in a very different kind of postseason. So I’d like to shine the light on unusual Javier Baez strikeouts. Specifically, I want to know what you think about them.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Mookie Betts’ bowling exploits and Jeff’s AL Rookie of the Year ballot, then predict and review the results of Jerry Crasnick’s annual insiders survey, draft winter World Series odds movers, and do another draft of free agents’ estimated earnings.

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Congratulations to Cody Bellinger for winning the National League Rookie of the Year Award! While I’m actually writing this post before the award is announced, the case for Bellinger is pretty clear — no National League rookie had a bat like his while playing in so many games. As a bonus, Bellinger also recorded strong numbers on the basepaths and became one of 12 first basemen to add four or more games in center field since free agency began in 1974. Using a swing that the Dodgers helped him build, he hit the third-most home runs in a rookie season, ever. Bellinger had a top-20 rookie season over that time span in the National League and deserves his award for regular-season excellence.

But, as a member of the Baseball Writers Association, I had the benefit and honor of fulling out a full ballot for this award, not just one name. It’s down the ballot where things got difficult. It’s down the ballot where I began to wonder how much the future matters when believing the past. It’s down the ballot where I hemmed and hawed, considering the qualities of players as differently excellent as Luis Castillo, Paul DeJong, and Rhys Hoskins.

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Last week, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced 10 candidates for consideration for the Modern Era ballot, which includes executives and players whose careers took place mainly from 1970 to 1987. This year, the candidates include one non-player, Marvin Miller, and nine players from that era: Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Ted Simmons, Luis Tiant and Alan Trammell. Among the player candidates, we have an interesting mix: some who make their claim with a high peak, those who have longevity on their side, and one player with both. Over the course of three posts, I’ll examine all the candidates. We’ll start today with the three pitchers on the ballot.

First, a brief word on the rules and procedures of this ballot, which is a updated version of the old Veteran’s Committee. Baseball has been separated into eras, with Early Baseball (1871-1949), Golden Days (1950-1969), Modern Baseball (1970-1987), and Today’s Game (1988-Present). Most players up through 1969 have had their cases considered many times. As a result, during this cycle (2016-2020), the Early Baseball and Golden Days players are scheduled to be evaluated just once, in 2020, with Modern Baseball and Today’s Game receiving consideration every other year from 2016 to -19. There are 16 voting members on the Committee for election, and players must receive 75% of the vote with voting members limited to four votes.

In my evaluation of each player, I’ve included a collection of numbers. Besides WAR, the rest of these come from a system I devised (introduction here) that provides an escalating scale of points for all above-average seasons (HOF Points) averaged with WAR to come to a total HOF Rating. The averaged and median numbers that follow are first for all Hall of Famers at their respective positions — which, in this case, is all starting pitchers. The BBWAA averages and medians are for those Hall of Famers voted in by the writers, who have historically had tougher standards.

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