THE OTHER RACE
Andujar, Torres chasing rookie award as well as playoff berth
BEFORE Aaron Judge provided an update on his right wrist Tuesday afternoon, he checked in on a less worrisome matter.
“I picked GT at the start of the year, but Miggy’s made a big run,” the reigning American League Rookie of the Year said of his successor.
GT would be Gleyber Torres, the guy who appeared the favorite at the All-Star break, and Miggy is of course Miguel Andujar, who has appeared to overtake his Yankees teammate with a ferocious display of hitting as Torres cooled.
If September simply extends this current Yankees lull — too far behind the Red Sox to make a real run at the AL East title and too far ahead of the A’s to sweat home-field advantage in the AL wildcard game — then the Rookie of the Year sweepstakes will provide a pleasant diversion.
And news arose on Monday to remind us this won’t be a Bronx-exclusive event.
The Angels’ Shohei Ohtani, whom you would have projected a year ago as more likely than Torres or Andujar to be a high-impact Yankees rookie, threw a simulated game on Monday afternoon and then slugged a three-run homer at night against the Rockies. The two-way threat appears determined to return to the mound, where he hasn’t appeared in a big-league game since June 6 thanks to a sprained UCL in his right elbow.
Ohtani took a .276/.354/.547 slash line in 261 plate appearances into Tuesday night’s action, plus his 3.10 ERA in 49 ¹ /3 innings pitched, and if he had extended this success with, say, 50 percent more plate appearances and innings pitched, he’d win this honor running away.
Instead, Ohtani’s time on the disabled list and the Angels’ careful handling of him have turned this into a three-horse race.
It’s both fun and folly to forecast these postseason award races, as the result depends entirely on the 30 Baseball Writers Association of America members — two from each of the 15 AL cities — who receive the specific assignment. In 2016, the Red Sox’s Rick Porcello edged the Tigers’ Justin Verlander for the AL Cy Young Award when the advanced metrics favored Verlander, prompting criticisms of the BBWAA’s caveman outlook. The very next day, the Angels’ Mike Trout defeated the Red Sox’s Mookie Betts for AL Most Valuable Player honors, reflecting an analytically inclined voting body.
Two critical pieces of wisdom on this topic emerged from the Yankees clubhouse Tuesday. First, Judge noted, “We’ve got one month to go.” At the end of last August, Judge had seemingly slumped his way out of the AL MVP conversation (while retaining the top slot for rookie honors). Yet Judge rebounded with such a monstrous September that he finished a respectable second behind the Astros’ Jose Altuve on the MVP ballot while winning the rookie award unanimously.
As Yankees in a pennant race, Andujar and Torres can help or hurt their cases significantly. Yet their chief challenger can match that despite the Angels’ virtual elimination.
When I asked Yankees pitcher Luis Severino (who finished third in last year’s AL Cy Young vote) whether he’d keep tabs on Ohtani, he said that he wouldn’t monitor every at-bat, nor would that be necessary, in introducing the second pearl of wisdom.
“The whole world knows when he hits a homer,” Severino said of Ohtani. “It’s a little bit difficult to miss.” It will be tough for voters to miss anything Ohtani accomplishes.
Don’t rule out a few votes, from the more analytically inclined, going to the likes of Rays infielder-outfielder Joey Wendle, Rangers infielder-catcher Isiah Kiner-Falefa or pitchers Brad Keller of the Royals and Lou Trivino of the A’s. Yet you could do worse than bet that Ohtani, Torres and Andujar, in some order, will top the final ballot.
For the Mets, Jacob deGrom’s National League Cy Young campaign presents reason to care. For the Yankees, the Rookie of the Year race gives them something aside from the stressful countdown towards the postseason. Which means that, if all goes perfectly, Andujar and Torres will help their team relax in September and prevail in October.