Category: MLB

There was a time and place when swatting 32 homers and driving in 112 runs during one’s rookie year would have made one an absolute lock to take home Rookie of the Year honors. In calendar year 2026, though, there are a whole lot more factors that go into the decision making process among voters to determine which rookies were the most valuable during their respective first full seasons.

Sal Stewart of the Cincinnati Reds put up those marks in a monster campaign this past season, and though he was named a finalist for the National League Rookie of the Year Award last week for his accomplishments there were another pair of finalists that were every bit as deserving in their own ways.

On Sunday night, though, the voting revealed it was Sal who’d taken home the award, besting both JJ Wetherholt of the St. Louis Cardinals and Carson Benge of the New York Mets.

Sal Stewart is the 2026 NL Jackie Robinson Rookie of the Year! pic.twitter.com/luUhtgvnfR

— MLB (@MLB) November 10, 2026

Sal’s counting stats were impossible to ignore for voters despite Wetherholt having put up a 4 WAR season on the back of excellent defense at shortstop and Benge having put together a 4 WAR season of his own on the back of a 20 homer, 20 steal season.

Despite advanced metrics clearly giving the all-around advantage to the non-Red in the equation, Sal actually ran away with the voting with Benge finishing 2nd and Wetherholt a close 3rd.

Sal Stewart rose above the rest in his rookie season 👏

Here’s the voting breakdown for the 2026 National League Rookie of the Year Award! pic.twitter.com/fkfIn6WD2e

— MLB (@MLB) November 10, 2026

Stewart’s win earned the Reds a Prospect Promotion Initiative (PPI) pick in next summer’s draft with his win, as well as the overall bonus pool bump that will come with an additional pick at the end of the 1st round. Sal also became the first Red to take home Rookie of the Year honors since Jonathan India back in 2021.

Congrats to Sal on a wonderful RoY campaign.

A pretty straightforward headline, but I was curious to see how many votes Bryce Eldridge would actually receive after the announcement that he wasn’t a finalist. It turns out he received two (2) of the thirty (30) votes and both were for 5th place — not enough to land him that spot. The top 5 vote-getters:

1. Sal Stewart, Reds — 170 points
2. Carson Benge, Mets — 107
3. JJ Wetherholt, Cards — 99
4. Nolan McLean, Mets — 70
5. TJ Rumfield, Rockies – 49

And he actually had fewer votes than #6 on the list, Logan Henderson. He tied with Atlanta pitcher Didier Fuentes, and both had one more vote than another Mets rookie: outfielder A.J. Ewing.

Now, if you want to know why Stewart got it, the answer is simple: 32 home runs and 112 RBI. Otherwise, his 112 wRC+ was just 6th. Eldridge led the NL rookie pack at 131. By fWAR, his 1.8 was outside the top 6th, but Stewart’s was just 2.0 thanks to -8.8 Defensive Runs Above Average. What could have been, had Eldridge’s season not been cut short by a doorway… right?

By straight WAR, the vote would’ve gone Wetherholt (4.6), Benge (4.3), Rumfield (2.6), Miami’s Joe Mack (2.2), and the Stewart. Benge had 20 homers, trailing Stewart by a wide margin, but what if Eldridge had avoided that doorway and gotten to 20 or 21 himself? It might’ve been an interesting discussion.

As it stands, Eno Sarris’s bet has paid off in year one.

Cincinnati will receive the Prospect Promotion Incentive (PPI) draft pick because they put Stewart on their Opening Day roster. The Giants didn’t want to do that, but as the #4 most important story of the season, there’s a certain what could’ve been quality to his season. The kid showed he could hang in the big leagues and adjust back against the league’s adjustments to him. This happened to one of the other finalists.

Carson Benge was hitting .204 through his first 36 games but then .301/.362/.454 (.817 OPS) over the rest of the season with 17 homers and 54 RBI, along with superlative defense. Eldridge was down to .248/.342/.426 (.768) after 76 games, but in his final 31 (138 PA) he slashed .319/.413/.543 (.956 OPS) with 6 homers and 29 RBI. Wetherhold faded down the stretch (along with missing time due to injury) and hit .213/.310/.276 over his final 34 games (145 PA). Sal Stewart hovered around a .720 OPS over the final weeks of the season but, rather crucially, he played in all 162 games. But, to be clear, and to take off the fan hat: this is some serious competition. This was a very tough field. Eldridge would’ve had to get much closer to those counting stats to make up for the lack of defensive pizzaz and to overcome the games played disparity with Stewart.

It’s not the ideal outcome for such a promising season, but this has the chance to be a quaint footnote in his professional story. He made a big impression at age 21 but didn’t even sniff the Rookie of the Year Award, but went on to become a perennial All-Star and a notable slugger in Giants history. I mean, that’s the hope, right?

The real shocker in this is how the Bay Area writers stayed away. Eldridge’s two votes came from David Venn of MLB.com from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s Arizona chapter and The Athletic’s Charlotte Varnes from the Philadelphia chapter. Eldridge didn’t even face the Phillies this season and in Arizona he hit just .286/.286/.333 in 21 PA (5 games); though, overall: .311/.367/.467 with a homer and 8 RBI in 49 PA (12 total games).

The SF chapter votes were from Jaeho Kim (MK Sports) and Shayna Rubin (The Chronicle). Rubin’s 5 were the top 5 (slight difference in order) and Kim’s ballot omitted Benge in favor of Didier Fuentes.

Payton Tolle was not named the American League Rookie of the Year for 2026 tonight. This was expected.

Tolle was great, of course. He was the first Red Sox pitcher under the age of 24 since Dennis Eckersley to make at least 4 starts of at least 6 innings without allowing a single run. He was also the only rookie in baseball history to post a strikeout rate above 28% and a walk rate below 7% while throwing at least 140 innings. And while both of those stats are a little too niche to be taken seriously by most people who would read them, they both point to an undeniable truth: Payton Tolle is really young and really good.

Unfortunately for him, Kevin McGonigle is also really young and really good. He’s even younger than Tolle, in fact, and yet he led the entire American League in bWAR, his 7.1 besting Yordan Alvarez and Bobby Witt, Jr. to round out the top-three. When a rookie is arguably the most valuable player in the entire league, the Rookie of the Year voting is reduced to a mere formality. McGonigle ran roughshod over the league and was justly rewarded.

But let the record show: the Red Sox tried their damndest to get Tolle the award, by which I mean the Red Sox pitching staff completely dominated McGonigle this year. In 5 games against the Sox, McGonigle slashed just .238/.273/.286. That was the third-lowest OPS he put up against any team. Moreover, McGonigle ducked when he had a chance to do damage against Tolle himself, sitting out the first game of an early May series when Tolle was on the bump. Was he merely being platooned against a tough lefty, as left-handed rookies often are, or is he a coward?!?!

Probably the former, but hopefully we get a chance to see a Tolle-McGonigle matchup at some point next season.

In 2024, when Paul Skenes won National League Rookie of the Year, Jackson Chourio finished as one of the NL’s three finalists. In 2025, Caleb Durbin made it back-to-back years with a Brewers finalist as Drake Baldwin took home the award.

This year, despite a trio of talented rookies in Logan Henderson, Cooper Pratt, and Luis Lara, all of whom contributed to the Brewers’ title run, Milwaukee was shut out. The finalists in the National League were Cardinals second baseman J.J. Wetherholt, Mets right fielder Carson Benge, and the winner: first baseman Sal Stewart of the Reds.

Henderson did pick up some down-ballot votes, receiving one second-place vote, one third-place vote, and three fifth-place votes. The right-hander put up 3.3 bWAR (1.3 more than Stewart) and went the whole regular season without allowing more than three runs in a start.

Stewart, who received 20 first-place votes and 170 total points, is an old-school pick whose power is his calling card; despite posting just 2.0 bWAR, he finished eighth in the NL with 32 home runs and second with 112 RBIs.

Finishing in second place with 107 points was Benge, who doesn’t lead the way in any one statistical category: he’s just good at everything. He’s an above-average hitter (118 OPS+) and an above-average defender (+1 DRS), he posted a 20/20 season, and he got better as the year went on. Benge’s standout tool is his arm; he finished the season with 10 outfield assists, including one on August 17 that was thrown at 103.9 mph.

Wetherholt, who finished third with 99 points, is already one of the best defensive players in the league; he led all NL rookies with 4.6 bWAR despite hitting at a roughly league-average level (.704 OPS, 102 OPS+). His +25 outs above average and +23 fielding run value both ranked second in the majors, behind only Pete Crow-Armstrong.

In the AL, Kevin McGonigle ran away with the award, receiving 28 of 30 first-place votes. In his first season as a big-leaguer, McGonigle led the entire American League with 7.1 bWAR, a ridiculous number that shows just how bright his future is.

Full voting results are available from the BBWAA for the NL and the AL.

Awards Season is officially in full swing now, as the BBWAA will be announcing the winners of their annual awards throughout the week. As usual, the ceremonies got started off with the BBWAA Jackie Robinson Rookie of the Year Awards and the flavor of this year’s edition was Central Divison-centric.

Indeed, Kevin McGonigle of the Detroit Tigers and Sal Stewart of the Cincinnati Reds ended up taking home the hardware for the AL And NL Rookie of the Year Awards, respectively.

When it comes to the AL race, it was really no contest as McGonigle finished with 28 of the possible 30 first place votes on his way to becoming the sixth Rookie of the Year Award for Detroit winner — their first winner since 2016 which is when Michael Fullmer took home the honors. McGonigle finished the year with a slash line of .278/.376/.430 with a .357 wOBA, 129 wRC+ and 18 home runs while splitting time equally between shortstop and third base. McGonigle finished the season as the rookie leader in fWAR at 5.4, so it’s not particularly shocking that he took home the honors.

The NL Race wasn’t much closer, as Sal Stewart ended up taking home the honors in comfortable fashion as he received 20 of the 30 possible first place votes. Stewart’s award now makes it nine times that Reds players have won this award now, with the most recent winner before Sal being Jonathan India back in 2021. Stewart finished his year with a .263/.330/.457 line along with a .339 wOBA, 112 wRC+ and 32 dingers on the year. Stewart led all NL rookies in homers, but I will say that it’s kind of shocking that JJ Wetherholt not only didn’t win it but he also finished third behind Carson Benge as well.

With all of that being said, our very own Didier Fuentes did receive some consideration for this award. Atlanta’s top reliever (according to Walt Weiss, himself) earned two fifth-place votes in order to come in eighth-place overall in the NL Rookie of the Year voting, so it’s at least nice to see that Fuentes’s efforts on the mound this season (58 appearances, 73.1 innings pitched, 2.45 ERA (58 ERA-), 2.60 FIP (62 FIP-) didn’t go completely ignored.

BBWAA Awards Week will continue tomorrow night, as we’ll find out if Walt Weiss did enough to earn the honors of being NL Manager of the Year. We’ll see what happens then./f

Sal Stewart never took a day off this season. He played all 162 games for the Cincinnati Reds, hit 32 homers and drove in 112 runs. No Reds rookie had ever driven in more.

Monday, it made him the National League Rookie of the Year.

"Man, relieved," Stewart said on MLB Network after winning the award. "I told myself I knew this award was going to find me, because that's how I was raised. I worked hard and I did what I could.

"I'm a kid from Miami. I worked hard for this moment. A lot of people doubted me."

The 22-year-old first baseman received 20 of 30 first-place votes and 170 points from the Baseball Writers' Association of America. New York Mets outfielder Carson Benge was second with seven first-place votes and St. Louis Cardinals second baseman JJ Wetherholt was third with three.

Stewart is the ninth Reds player to win the award. Jonathan India was the last in 2021.

Cincinnati gets a draft pick out of it. MLB's Prospect Promotion Incentive rewards teams that give top prospects a full rookie season in the majors, and the NL winner earns his club an extra pick after the first round of the 2027 draft.

Stewart spent most of the summer as the best run producer in the sport. On Aug. 26, he became the first player in the majors to reach 100 RBIs. He finished third in baseball, behind Alec Burleson's 116 and Pete Alonso's 113.

How Sal Stewart won NL Rookie of the Year

By the end of April, Stewart had nine homers and 29 RBIs, was hitting .281 and had gone 7-for-7 stealing bases.

May and June were harder. He hit under .250 in both months.

He fixed it in July and was named an All-Star. In August, he won NL Rookie of the Month for the second time, the first Reds player to win it twice in one season.

The Reds kept finding spots to keep his bat and speed in the lineup. Stewart appeared in 117 games at first base, 45 at third, 11 as the designated hitter and eight at second base.

Sal Stewart stats and Reds rookie records

Jim Greengrass drove in 100 runs as a Reds rookie in 1953. His record held up for 73 years.

Stewart beat it by 12.

Frank Robinson hit 38 homers as a rookie in 1956. Until this year, he was the only Reds rookie with 30. Stewart is the first to do it with 100 RBIs. His 20 homers before the All-Star break were another franchise record.

He finished with 164 hits, tied for second in the NL, the most by a Reds rookie since Pete Rose had 170 in 1963. He led all NL rookies in homers, RBIs, extra-base hits (57) and total bases (285).

No Reds rookie had played every game since the NL moved to a 162-game schedule.

Only one other rookie has put up 30 homers, 100 RBIs and 15 steals in a season: Jose Canseco in 1986.

Reds Rookie of the Year winners

• Frank Robinson, outfielder, 1956
• Pete Rose, second baseman, 1963
• Tommy Helms, third baseman, 1966
• Johnny Bench, catcher, 1968
• Pat Zachry, pitcher, 1976 (shared with San Diego's Butch Metzger)
• Chris Sabo, third baseman, 1988
• Scott Williamson, pitcher, 1999
• Johnathan India, second baseman, 2021
• Sal Stewart, first baseman, 2026

Why Sal Stewart beat Carson Benge for NL Rookie of the Year

Not everyone thought Stewart was the best rookie in the league.

Stewart had the power numbers. Benge and Wetherholt had the better all-around seasons.

Benge hit .282 with 20 homers, 65 RBIs and 22 steals for the Mets. He was the better hitter for average, the faster runner and better fielder.

Wetherholt, the Cardinals' second baseman, didn't come close to Stewart at the plate. He hit .242 with 17 homers. But he was a Gold Glove finalist and one of the best defenders in the league.

That's why both rated well ahead of Stewart in WAR. FanGraphs had Benge at 4.3 and Stewart at 1.9. Baseball Reference had Wetherholt at 4.5 and Stewart at 1.8. Stewart's defense at first and third base cost him.

So did September.

Stewart hit .247 over his final 24 games, with one extra-base hit and six RBIs. Alec Burleson passed him for the NL lead in RBIs in the final week.

The voters still went with the homers, the RBIs and the 162 games.

NL Rookie of the Year winners, past 10 years

Asterisks denote a unanimous vote

• 2025: Drake Baldwin, catcher, Atlanta Braves
• 2024: Paul Skenes, pitcher, Pittsburgh Pirates
• 2023: Corbin Carroll, outfielder, Diamondbacks*
• 2022: Michael Harris II, outfielder, Atlanta Braves
• 2021: Jonathan India, second baseman, Cincinnati Reds
• 2020: Devin Williams, pitcher, Milwaukee Brewers
• 2019: Pete Alonso, first baseman, New York Mets
• 2018: Ronald Acuna Jr., outfielder, Atlanta Braves
• 2017: Cody Bellinger, first baseman, Los Angles Dodgers*
• 2016: Corey Seager, shortstop, Los Angeles Dodgers*

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Reds' Sal Stewart wins NL Rookie of the Year after 112 RBI season

Welcome to our series grading every member of the San Diego Padres’ 40-man roster. The roster being evaluated is current as of Oct. 18, prior to the end of the World Series. Because of that, it will include players who will be free agents once the postseason concludes. Each player will be graded on their performance in the 2026 season, including the playoffs. That performance will be weighted based on how much time the player spent with the team (availability is the best ability). 

Jackson Merrill

When Jackson Merrill trotted out to center field on Opening Day of the 2024 season, he had played just six games at the position. Merrill was drafted by San Diego as a lifetime shortstop, but transitioned to center field and flourished. In his rookie year, Merrill finished runner-up in NL Rookie of the Year voting behind Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes. He had a bit of a slump in his sophomore season, being held back by injury.

Overall Grade: B

However, 2026 was a return to form. Merrill recorded the first 20/20 season of his young career, finishing the year with a career-high 26 homers and 27 stolen bases. If not for a slightly unproductive first half of the season, Merrill might have recorded the first 30/30 season in Padres’ franchise history. Along with Fernando Tatis Jr., Merrill buoyed the Padres’ second-half surge.

Merrill’s overall metrics have consistently declined since his rookie year. The center fielder’s batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS have all decreased each year. Still, 2026 was his most productive season yet with a career-high in combination of runs scored and runs batted in (173).

There’s a lot to suggest that Merrill was unlucky. His .270 expected batting average was 26 points higher than his actual mark (.254) while his .491 xSLG was 51 points above his actual (.440). Much of that may have to do with Merrill’s unbelievably high strikeout rates (career-high 160 strikeouts). If he can mitigate the Ks in 2027, Merrill could be phenomenal leader in the San Diego clubhouse this coming season.

The results are in for Rookie of the Year from Major League Baseball and Sal Stewart of the Cincinnati Reds was announced as the winner. The other finalist along with JJ Wetherholt of the Cardinals was Carson Benge of the New York Mets.

JJ was hoping to be the first St. Louis Cardinals Rookie of the Year since Albert Pujols won the award in 2001.

Here are JJ’s numbers for the 2026 season:

Games Played – 139
Plate Appearances – 619
At Bats – 537
Runs – 89
Hits – 130
Doubles – 15
Triples – 0
Home Runs – 17
Runs Batted In (RBI) – 51
Walks – 64
Strikeouts – 104
Stolen Bases / Caught Stealing – 14 / 1
Batting Average (AVG) – .242
On-Base Percentage (OBP) – .339
Slugging Percentage (SLG) – .365
On-Base Plus Slugging (OPS) – .704

The full 2026 NL Rookie of the Year voting results pic.twitter.com/dYEs3S4vGz

— AT (@BaseballWRLD_) November 10, 2026

The Mariners made the hires of bench coach Tanner Swanson and hitting coach CJ Gillman official today, continuing a theme that started when the hiring of manager Jason Kanzler was officially announced last week: the youth movement is coming back to Seattle.

In Dipoto’s first season, the Mariners trended towards conservative hires or retaining coaches who had already been in the organization. Dipoto brought over several people he’d worked with during his time with the Angels – Mike Micucci, Ethan Katz, and Zac Livingston – and retained most other staff members rather than cleaning house organizationally from top to bottom.

But by 2016, Dipoto and then-Director of Player Development Andy McKay were ready to take some bigger swings. One of the biggest was hiring a 32-year-old Mitch Canham to manage their A-ball affiliate, the Clinton LumberKings. At the time, Canham was well-known to Northwest baseball fans as a standout star at Lake Stevens high school and then Oregon State, but an unknown quantity in the broader coaching world, lacking any official managerial experience before being handed the reins at a full-season affiliate.

Canham’s hiring was part of an organizational philosophy shift that emphasized quality of leadership over depth of experience – as McKay put it, “better people make better baseball players”, which starts with them being led by the best people available. Joining Canham in Clinton was pitching coach Pete Woodworth, who had more official coaching experience but was just 28 years old at the time.

Those hires sparked an influx of young coaching talent, often from non-traditional coaching backgrounds, into the Mariners organization. The next few years would see the hiring of at the time relatively unknown names, many of whom who have since moved on from Seattle to build impressive coaching resumes elsewhere: Tony Arnerich, Carson Vitale, Hugh Quattlebaum, Max Weiner, Jarret DeHart, Rob Marcello, Sean McGrath, just to name a handful. Those coaches oversaw the transition of the Mariners farm system from one of the worst in baseball to a consistent solid performer, and the pitching coaches especially helped the Mariners earn a well-deserved reputation as one of the sport’s best in developing pitchers.

But the Mariners paid the price – or rather, didn’t – for that innovation, losing many of their young coaches to better opportunities (and/or better salaries) elsewhere. Two that stung the most were the losses of Canham and Weiner, both of whom moved on to high-profile (and high-paid) jobs at the college level. The annual turnover started disrupting the chain of development, and the ties that bound the minor-league process to the big-league results-oriented product weakened until the cracks showed through clearly in 2026: an organization that seemed to drift without an identity or plan.

Jerry Dipoto was frank in his end-of-season presser about acknowledging the disconnect between the process the organization worked so hard to implement at the minor-league level and the big leagues, and the necessity of hiring someone who can get things back on the right track.

“We will find someone through this process who comes in and is in alignment with what we see as the direction this team needs to head in, and then guides us in a way that we get better,” said Dipoto, prior to Kanzler’s hiring. “Because obviously the performance on the field this year has made us question a lot of the things that we’re doing at the major-league level, and I will say multiple of our major-league players who came through our system have referenced what they learned in player development that got abandoned in the big leagues this year…We need to get back to what we believe is a Mariners baseball process.

In the press conference introducing Kanzler, Justin Hollander concurred with what Dipoto had said a month earlier.

“We need to be better about connecting what we believe in organizationally to what we do in the big leagues. That’s something that was identified by Jerry, myself, our baseball operations staff, and most importantly, our players as we went through the end of the season,” said Hollander.

“We also need to push ourselves, try new things that maybe hadn’t been on our radar. So finding someone with Jason’s skillset that can develop while we’re in the big leagues, that can connect an organization from top to bottom, was a huge part of this.”

The Mariners of the last few years of the 2010s weren’t afraid to push the envelope, to make out-of-the-box hires, and to try new things – at least as far as development-wise. Now, with hiring Kanzler, Gillman, and Swanson – ages 36, 37, and 44, respectively – they’re pushing the envelope on the top rail of the dugout.

But for all the seeming risk, it’s still a calculated one. Rather than make the clubhouse fit the skipper, the Mariners have chosen a skipper who fits the clubhouse.

“The uniqueness of [Kanzler’s] developmental path is going to go a long way with modern players,” said Jerry Dipoto.

For all the foofaraw around Kanzler’s age and experience, though – or that of his bench coach or hitting coordinator – when Kanzler talks, it feels like an echo of the process the Mariners used to hire Canham a decade ago: getting the best out of players by putting the best, bigger-picture focused people in front of them.

“It’s important to have connection with the players,” said Kanzler in his opening presser. “It’s most important to have connection throughout the entire thing. The entire organization needs to be connected towards the common goal of winning the World Series…I like to think that the sign of things going well is when people start using the word ‘we’ more than ‘me’ or ‘I.’ When the group starts talking in ‘we’, then I know that things are going well.”

1908
Roy Schalk, unrelated to White Sox Hall-of-Famer Ray but still with a distinctive playing career, was born, in Chicago.

Schalk’s distinction was the enormous gap between his first and second seasons in the big leagues. While the 12 years between his debut with the New York Yankees in 1932 and his return to MLB in 1944 is not a record, no player has ever been out of the majors for a decade or more and then returned to the bigs to play at least 100 games.

Schalk benefited from the exodus of big-leaguers to the armed forces during World War II. He played poorly in his return from exile in 1944, with -1.4 WAR as Chicago’s starting second baseman and missing only eight games all year. In 1945 he was again a full-timer, and his play “improved” (-0.3 WAR) so much, he finished 19th in AL MVP voting.

With the regulars returning home at war’s end, the 37-year-old Schalk saw his MLB career end. Yet he pressed on for four more seasons in the minors. He would finish his career with 2,005 MiLB games over 20 seasons, playing until age 41.

2005
After a season that saw the White Sox win their first World Series title since 1917, the Baseball Writers Association of America named Ozzie Guillén Manager of the Year. Guillén, the former Sox All-Star shortstop, guided the team to a wire-to-wire Central Division title with 99 wins; they then went 11-1 in the postseason, capping it off with a four-game sweep of Houston in the World Series. 

Ozzie picked up 17 first-place votes and 105 total points to beat out Cleveland’s Eric Wedge. Wedge got six first-place votes and 71 points, while New York’s Joe Torre was third with 43 points.

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2009
Norge Luis Vera, father of future White Sox farmhand Norge Vera, suffered serious facial injuries while trying to break up a fight in Santiago, Cuba. The Cuban National Series veteran needed facial reconstruction and, at 37, could have seen the end of his career. However, Vera returned in just two months, and was in Cuba’s starting rotation for the 2009 World Baseball Classic.

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2016
Toledo stormed back to beat Northern Illinois, 31-24, in the “Chi-Town Showdown” — the first football game ever played at the new Sox Park. The Huskies, who dropped to 3-3, had led for the first three quarters of the game.

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2020
Rookie Gold Glove winner Luis Robert Jr. found himself much less successful in the Rookie of the Year voting. Robert didn’t receive a single first-place vote for Rookie of the Year while another center fielder, Kyle Lewis, won unanimously. Lewis was not a superior hitter in 2020, and in fact Robert had the better WAR, 1.8 to 1.6.

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2023
After eight years working his dream job as a lifelong White Sox fan, play-by-play broadcaster Jason Benetti left the club, taking the same role for division rival Detroit.

Almost certainly the most popular broadcaster on air for the White Sox over the prior two decades, it became known that owner Jerry Reinsdorf disliked Benetti’s jovial style, peppered with pop culture. But most damning was the disrespect show Benetti by marketing head Brooks Boyer, who left the impression the Homewood native was a diva.

In Benetti’s first season in Detroit, the Tigers when on an incredible hot streak to end the season and made it to the ALDS. The White Sox lost a modern-record 121 games.

Kevin McGonigle got on base 266 times this season, more than any rookie in Detroit Tigers history. On Monday, Nov. 9, that earned him the 2026 American League Rookie of the Year award.

"Growing up, loving this game from a young age, just believing in myself, having the confidence to see myself playing at the highest level of baseball one day, and to see it all pay off, it's just hard to put into words," McGonigle told MLB Network. "I wouldn't be able to do it without my family, of course."

The 22-year-old infielder received 28 of 30 first-place votes from the Baseball Writers Association of America to beat out Cleveland Guardians starting pitcher Parker Messick, who finished second, and Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Payton Tolle.

McGonigle is the sixth Tiger to win the award and the first since Michael Fulmer in 2016.

The trophy comes with a draft pick.

Baseball now rewards teams that put elite prospects on the Opening Day roster and keep them there. Under MLB's Prospect Promotion Incentive, McGonigle's win gives the Tigers an extra pick after the first round of the 2027 draft. Picks like that have landed between No. 26 and No. 32 about where Detroit drafted McGonigle in 2023.

Not bad for a guy who was supposed to start the 2026 season in the minors.

McGonigle had 46 games of Double-A experience when he reported to spring training. He skipped Triple-A entirely. Then he hit .278 with a .376 on-base percentage, tallying 18 homers, 72 RBIs and 97 runs. His 7.1 WAR, by Baseball Reference's measure, led the entire American League, pitchers included.

The first big-league pitch McGonigle saw, he drove for a two-run double.

That was March 26 in San Diego, with the bases loaded. He finished the day with four hits. At 21, he was the youngest Tiger on an Opening Day roster since Omar Infante in 2003. ESPN found that no one that young had four hits on Opening Day since Ken Griffey Jr.

Seventeen games into his big league career, Detroit gave him an eight-year, $150 million contract.

He joked Monday night that though he did not own a suit to wear to the signing ceremony for that extension, he's recently bought one - and a tuxedo that he can wear to accept the award in New York at the BBWAA dinner in January.

"I got some weddings to go to, so I had to get prepared for that," McGonigle said. "I have one now. All fitted to me. Not the one I was wearing at my signing."

McGonigle played 156 games and came to the plate 707 times. He drew 95 walks and struck out 100 times. In July he started at shortstop in the All-Star Game at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, about 15 miles from where he grew up.

The last rookie to reach 97 runs, 28 doubles, 18 homers, 72 RBIs and 95 walks in a season was Ted Williams in 1939.

No rookie had led his league in WAR since Mike Trout in 2012.

Messick made it a race. He had a 2.56 ERA in 32 starts and is a finalist for the AL Cy Young Award, which will be announced Wednesday, Nov. 11. Tolle posted a 3.03 ERA in 26 starts for the Red Sox.

Kevin McGonigle stats and Tigers rookie records

Harvey Kuen reached base 260 times as a Tigers rookie in 1953. It stood as a franchise record for 73 years.

McGonigle passed it in September and finished with 266 on 168 hits, 95 walks and three hit by pitches. He also beat the 262 Barney McCosky put up for Detroit in 1939.

Since 1990, three other rookies reached base that many times: Aaron Judge Ichiro Suzuki and Albert Pujols.

Each of them won Rookie of the Year.

McGonigle's 95 walks tied for fifth most by a rookie since 1947, and no rookie had drawn more since Judge took 127 in 2017. He reached base at least twice in 86 games, the same as Kuenn.

His 7.1 WAR ranks sixth all-time for a rookie, according to MLB.com, behind Trout, Dick Allen, Judge, Fred Lynn and Carlton Fisk.

Who is Kevin McGonigle?

He grew up in Delaware County outside of Philadelphia as a Phillies fan who idolized second baseman and World Series champion Chase Utley.

McGonigle played high school ball at Monsignor Bonner and Archbishop Predergast in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. The Phillies picked 27th in the 2023 draft and took another infielder, Aidan Miller. Ten picks later, Detroit took McGonigle, who passed on a commitment to Auburn to sign with the Tigers.

In 2025, he was the MVP of the Arizona Fall League. By spring, he was ranked baseball No. 2 prospect.

Tigers Rookie of the Year winners

• Harvey Kuenn, shortstop, 1953
• Mark Fidrych, pitcher, 1976
• Lou Whitaker, second baseman, 1978
• Justin Verlander, pitcher, 2006
• Michael Fulmer, pitcher, 2016
• Kevin McGonigle, infielder, 2026

AL Rookie of the Year winners, past 10 years

asterisks denote a unanimous vote

• 2025: Nick Kurtz, first baseman, Athletics*
• 2024: Luis Gil, pitcher, New York Yankees
• 2023: Gunnar Henderson, shortstop, Baltimore Orioles*
• 2022: Julio Rodriguez, outfielder, Seattle Mariners
• 2021: Randy Arozarena, outfielder, Tampa Bay Rays
• 2020: Kyle Lewis, outfielder, Seattle Mariners*
• 2019: Yordan Alvarez, outfielder/designated hitter, Houston Astros
• 2018: Shohei Ohtani, pitcher/designated hitter, Los Angeles Angels
• 2017: Aaron Judge, outfielder, New York Yankees*
• 2016: Michael Fulmer, pitcher, Detroit Tigers

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kevin McGonigle wins AL Rookie of the Year. Tigers get a bonus, too

He’s done it. After one of the better rookie seasons by a 21-year-old in the sport’s history, Detroit Tigers infielder Kevin McGonigle has been named the Jackie Robinson American League Rookie of the Year for 2026. He won the award with 28 of 30 first place votes. Guardians left-hander Parker Messick got the other two votes to finish second.

Despite skipping Triple-A and being one of the youngest players in the league, McGonigle served immediate notice on Opening Day, when he racked up four hits in a stellar major league debut. He went on to slash 278/.376/.430 with 18 home runs, 12 stolen bases, with nearly identical walk and strikeout rates. He posted a 129 wRC+ for the year while grading out as an above average shortstop and third baseman per defensive runs saved. His 5.4 fWAR was fourth in the American League, while his 7.1 rWAR was first in the American League and fourth in the major leagues. He’s just getting started.

The Detroit Tigers promoted McGonigle to the major league roster on March 24, 2026, ensuring that he would be eligible to earn the Tigers a Prospect Promotion Incentive (PPI) pick if he won Rookie of the Year, or if he finished top three in MVP voting over his first three seasons in the major leagues. By promoting him early, and then waiting until into the season to sign a 10-year extension, the Tigers both kept him eligible for the PPI pick and got him locked up for a decade. He cannot earn another PPI pick going forward.

The plan has come together perfectly, as McGonigle’s Rookie of the Year award earns the Tigers an extra draft pick in the 2027 amateur draft next July right after the first regular round. In addition, the Tigers will have roughly $3M added to their bonus pool in the draft. So on top of their normal first round pick, the Tigers will have the PPI pick, and then they’ll also have their Competitive Balance pick in the A round next summer, giving them three of the top 40 picks in the draft.

"Trying to find a routine that works best for me… that's what helped me this year, picking everyone's brain and getting as much help as I could."@tigers star Kevin McGonigle shares how he avoided the rookie wall on the way to winning AL Rookie of the Year! pic.twitter.com/nMlaaW3EXx

— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) November 10, 2026

McGonigle’s skills and ongoing development, along with excellent poise and leadership ability for a player so young, all say this is just the beginning for him. The raw power to hit a lot more home runs is already present, and he has the hit tool to do it without selling out for power very often. He’s already tracking like a regular MVP award contender for many years to come, and Tigers fans are going to love watching him anchor the club for the next decade or more.

The Cleveland Guardians’ LHP Parker Messick was the runner-up, with Boston Red Sox lefty Peyton Tolle finishing third. Both made outstanding debuts, and Messick in particular finished strong enough to really challenge McGonigle in the voting, and made a good case for the AL Cy Young award, to be announced on Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. ET, as well.

Congratulations to Kevin McGonigle on a truly special season that took a bit of the sting out of the Tigers’ failings as an organization this year. The best is yet to come.

Kevin McGonigle takes home 2026 BBWAA AL Jackie Robinson Rookie of the Year honors! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/hlc2MNLsDs

— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) November 10, 2026

2026 stats:46 G — .202/ .268/ .341, 5 HR, 13 RBI, 71 wRC+, -5 FRV, -0.5 fWAR

Boy, there was a moment when fans really felt like Osleivis Basabe was going to be a real spark. He was 8-for-24 with 3 homers and 8 RBI in his first 8 games. But then he went 18-for-105 over the rest of the season and in due time we were all reminded of why he’s been a fringe roster candidate since the Giants picked him up last season.

To dig a little deeper into the numbers — just for fun — let’s look at his Win Probability Added. Through those first 8 games it was +0.637. And those three home runs were significant.

The first tied a game:

And in the same game, he smacked a double off Mason Miller with the hardest contact a Giant had registered on a hit in the Statcast era:

His second home run cut another deficit:

And the third tied a game late and breaking up a shutout in the 7th inning:

Those final 105 at bats and 38 games, though? A -1.057 Win Probability Added. Statistically, he cost the Giants a full in the majority of his time. Confusingly, he had reverse platoon splits (.747 OPS vs. RHP, .406 vs. LHP) and more productive on the road (.712 OPS road, .489 OPS home). He thrived when the stakes were low. None of those three home runs came in Giants wins. And utility as a fielder was seriously lacking. After that initial barrage of offense, among the silent hitting spell, he had key errors.

But Basabe was one of those players who got some love as gratitude for giving fans a little bit of hope in a bad season. I think Giants fans are always hoping the next Gregor Blanco is around the corner. A Juan Uribe in waiting. He has yet to translate that MiLB career batting average of .288 into MLB success (.208 in 216 AB), though, which means at the end of the day he was a warm body the Giants turned to once Casey Schmitt was lost for the season. Because of Schmitt’s absence and the Luis Arraez trade, he was definitely called upon to play more often than he should have been, to the extent that at some point it could be argued that it’s hard to imagine what the team might’ve seen in him. Did they see another Donovan Solano? An Otto Lopez type?

Does he have the skills to be an MLB backup? Possibly. The pedigree is certainly there. At one point, he was a top 30 prospect in both the Rangers and Rays systems. He’s still just 26 years old so there’s always a chance he could catch on with another organization, but some aspect of his game needs to improve against world-best competition. A middle infielder who can’t hit or field against big league competition doesn’t really warrant a roster spot, and the Giants were in a position where they needed to see if any of his Triple-A work (.268/.344/.388) could translate.

It did not.

With Schmitt, Marcelo Mayer, Jonah Cox, Christian Koss, Maui Ahuna, Diego Velasquez, Gavin Kilen, Jhonny level, Josuar, Luis, and Joniel all in the mix, it was a runway to show off his utility and it just didn’t happen, so the Giants released outrighted him and he declared himself a free agent.

Will he be remembered in a couple of years as one of these bridge players between eras?

Happy Monday, folks. It’s been a day of some good Braves-related news and some funny Braves-related news.

On the good front, MLB Network reported that the Braves have no intention on hearing out any potential trade offers for star slugger Ronald Acuña Jr.

Report: Braves will “not engage” on Acuña trade | Battery Power

On the funny front, the Philadelphia Phillies are interested in Ha-Seong Kim for what is being reported is an important and versatile role? No doubt HSK’s 2027 season (lockout depending) will go better than his 2026 in Atlanta did. But I’m still skeptical of him stepping into an important role heading into next season.

Report: Phillies interested in Ha-Seong Kim | Battery Power