Dodgers Rookie of the Year winners, all 18 of them
Dodgers Rookie of the Year awards is more than any other team. How do all 18 of the first-year award-winners rank?
The Dodgers are at it again. With Cody Bellinger winning the NL Rookie of the Year Award this year, the Dodgers Rookie of the Year nods now has 18 players who have been named top rookie since the award was first given out in 1947. That was Jackie Robinson’s landmark season and he was the first to win it (back when only one award was given out for both leagues).
Two years after Robinson broke the modern color barrier and was named baseball’s best rookie, the award was handed out to the best rookie from each league for the first time. The Dodgers’ Don Newcombe won it that year, Joe Black earned it in 1952, and Jim Gilliam brought home the trophy in 1953.
After winning four ROY trophies in the first seven years it was awarded, the Dodgers were shut out until 1960 when big Frank Howard got the nod. Five years later it was Jim Lefebvre’s turn and four years after that Ted Sizemore got his.
From 1979 to 1982, the Los Angeles Dodgers won four straight ROY Awards. Rick Sutcliffe started off this streak, followed by Steve Howe, Fernando Valenzuela, and Steve Sax. All four players contributed to the Dodgers’ World Series-winning 1981 team (Sax played in 31 regular season games but didn’t exhaust his rookie eligibility).
The next stretch of Dodgers dominance started with Eric Karros powering his way to the top rookie prize in 1992. Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza took the honors in 1993 and Raul Mondesi won the award in 1994, making it three straight.
The Dodgers weren’t done yet, though. Hideo Nomo came over from Japan to win the Rookie of the Year Award in 1995 and Todd Hollandsworth made it five straight when he won it in 1996.
After winning five in a row from 1992 to 1996, the Dodgers went two decades without the league’s best rookie until Corey Seager ended the drought last season. Now, once again, the Dodgers have gone back-to-back with Cody Bellinger winning the Rookie of the Year Award this year. That makes 18 winners.
So which of these players went on to have long, productive careers and which ones flamed out after their initial greatness? Here is a ranking of these 18 Dodgers Rookie of the Year awards based on career greatness.
For these rankings, I used a combination of Wins Above Replacement (WAR) from Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference, but made adjustments for other factors, like Joe Black and Don Newcombe getting late starts to their careers because of the segregation.