There’s No Clear Favorite in the NL Rookie of the Year Race

Last week, I took a look at the fascinating race for the American League Rookie of the Year award, where four of our top five preseason prospects who have made their major league debuts — three of them on Opening Day — are making for a packed and compelling competition. In the National League, the race is just as crowded, though there isn’t a clear-cut favorite. And while the race in the AL is filled with top prospects, there are far more surprises and underdogs in the NL.

Before we get into the details, here’s some important context from that previous article:

When Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association signed a new Collective Bargaining Agreement this offseason, it included some interesting provisions designed to combat service time manipulation. Top prospects who finish first or second in Rookie of the Year voting will automatically gain a full year of service time regardless of when they’re called up, and teams that promote top prospects early enough for them to gain a full year of service will be eligible to earn extra draft picks if those players go on to finish in the top three in Rookie of the Year voting or the top five in MVP or Cy Young voting. The goal was to incentivize teams to call up their best young players when they’re ready, rather than keeping them in the minor leagues to gain an extra year of team control. So far, the rule changes seem to have had their intended effect: three of our top five preseason prospects, and 11 of our top 50, earned an Opening Day roster spot out of spring training.

Of those 11 top 50 prospects who started off the season in the major leagues, just five of them were in the National League. The highest-ranked player in that group was CJ Abrams (15), with the four others falling below 30th on our preseason list. That’s not to say that there’s a lack of highly regarded prospects making their debuts in the senior circuit; there have been a few more big call-ups since Opening Day, including our No. 8 prospect, Oneil Cruz, just a few days ago. Still, the differences between the two leagues are stark when you pull up the rookie leaderboards.

With that in mind, here are the best rookie performers in the NL through June 22:

Where the AL had a trio of top prospects leading the way, the NL has seven players firmly in front with plenty of others close behind. In that group, just Alek Thomas was ranked on our preseason top 100; the others were a mix of the unheralded, the very young, or those who had already lost their prospect sheen.

The biggest name in this group is MacKenzie Gore, unranked on our preseason list but once the top pitching prospect in all of baseball. His saga is well known by now. After a truly phenomenal minor league season in 2019, Gore looked like he was on the fast track to San Diego, but issues with his mechanics held him back during the shortened 2020 season despite the Padres’ desperate need for rotation help. That same refrain repeated last year, with San Diego turning to Jake Arrieta, Vince Velasquez, and a host of other equally poor options last summer in a hopeless search for answers during a late-season swoon. The fact that the Padres looked elsewhere when their need was greatest — twice! — speaks to just how much Gore was struggling.

After tinkering with all sorts of approaches last year, Gore showed up to spring training this season with some refined mechanics that helped alleviate the command issues he had dealt with over the last two seasons. He didn’t make the Opening Day roster but was called up a week after the season had started when Blake Snell suffered an adductor strain. He’s made 10 starts and a single relief appearance since then and has looked like the mid-rotation starter he was projected to be.

The key to his success — beyond fixing his command issues — has been a fantastic fastball that’s provided a strong foundation for his pitch arsenal. He throws it extremely hard for a lefty, and it possesses elite ride. Combined with his low release point, it’s a vertical approach angle monster, giving it an extra element of deception to go along with its great velocity. His secondary offerings always lagged behind his fastball as a prospect, but they’ve been good enough as a big leaguer to give him a solid four-pitch mix.

Unfortunately, Gore’s last two starts have been particularly rough: 14 runs in back-to-back starts against the Rockies, more than doubling his season total up to that point. Those recent struggles have exposed what happens when his newfound ability to spot his pitches suddenly escapes him. His fastball location was less than ideal in those two starts, and the Rockies punished him for it, posting a .445 wOBA off his heater — a huge increase over the .219 wOBA he had allowed previously. His whiff rate with his fastball, meanwhile, fell from 20.6% to just 10.8% during his last two starts.

The preseason favorite for NL ROY honors was Seiya Suzuki, who made the jump from Japan over to America this offseason. Unfortunately, after a great start to his MLB career, he struggled in May and then injured his left ring finger on an awkward slide on May 26, landing him on the IL. He’s only just recently resumed hitting and could return in the coming weeks. Despite his slump and absence, he’s still projected to accumulate the most WAR over the rest of the season among NL rookies, though as you can see, that wouldn’t be enough for him to finish first in total WAR in that group:

The two players at the top of that table, Brendan Donovan and Michael Harris II, have continued to build on strong debuts. The former might get overlooked a bit since he’s essentially filling a super-utility role on a strong Cardinals roster. His batted ball peripherals are also concerning, with his .388 BABIP propping up a lot of his 148 wRC+, only two barreled balls on the year, and a mediocre 37.7% hard-hit rate. That said, Donovan’s all-fields approach with plenty of ground balls and line drives has helped him get positive results when putting the ball in play, and his plate discipline has been excellent.

Harris has been a revelation in Atlanta. Originally called up because of his defense, his bat has surprisingly carried a lot of his production so far. Despite just 196 plate appearances in Double-A this year (and none at Triple-A), he’s posted a 151 wRC+ after 24 games in the majors. What’s likely helped is that the Braves identified a hole in his swing upon his initial call-up and have already implemented a change. That’s helped him produce plenty of power when he makes contact, though his plate discipline hasn’t been all that great. The elite defense in center field is for real, too, giving him another avenue to continue to contribute.

Harris isn’t the only standout rookie in Atlanta. Spencer Strider started the season in the bullpen in a piggybacking role with some of the Braves’ other young pitching prospects. He excelled enough to see some time in short, high-leverage appearances in mid-May and then made the transition to the starting rotation in June. No matter how he’s been deployed, he’s been phenomenal, utilizing a fastball that hits triple digits to great effect, paired with a nasty slider that’s running a 51.1% whiff rate. The one thing that could hold him back is the lack of a third pitch, limiting his effectiveness when working through a lineup multiple times.

Then there are the top prospects who could make some noise this summer: Alek Thomas, Nolan Gorman, and Oneil Cruz. Thomas just had a 12-game hitting streak snapped on Tuesday but followed it up with his sixth home run of the season on Wednesday. He’s had the longest stint in the majors of this trio, which means he’s already padded his WAR total. Gorman has shown off his 70-grade raw power, already matching Thomas’ home run total in 11 fewer games. His batted ball peripherals all support that, with above-average marks in barrel rate, maximum exit velocity, and hard-hit rate. Cruz made his major league debut late last September and only made his 2022 debut a few days ago, but he is poised to make a huge impact during the second half of the season. His raw power is immediately evident whenever he makes contact, but there are enough concerns about his plate approach that he could fall short of some of the other rookies who are more established already.

The most interesting thing about the NL Rookie of the Year race is that there are very few teams poised to take advantage of the new service time rules. Of the players listed above, just seven of them made their team’s Opening Day roster, though a handful of others, including Gore, will probably gain a full year’s worth of service time because they were called up early enough. Without a runaway favorite in the race, and with a number of top prospects recently recalled, there’s no telling which teams might be poised to gain an extra draft pick via the award voting.