Judge, Bellinger fourth pair to unanimously win Rookie of the Year
Throughout the 2017 Major League Baseball regular season there were many standout rookies, as there are in most seasons, all gunning to win their league’s Rookie of the Year Award.
Yet, in 2017 it seemed almost right from the beginning no rookies stood out the way New York Yankees’ new right fielder Aaron Judge and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ new first baseman Cody Bellinger did. The pair appeared to be “locks” to win the American League Rookie of the Year Award and National League Rookie of the Year Award, respectively.
The only real question was would they be able to do so unanimously earning 150 first-place votes from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America?
By the season’s end, it seemed that the pair had a very good chance of accomplishing what had only been done three times before since the Rookie of the Year Award had been given out in both leagues by the BBWAA, starting in 1949.
On Monday, Judge and Bellinger were unanimously voted by the BBWAA as the AL and NL Rookies of the Year, joining a very selective group of former rookies that includes a current member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
While neither Judge nor Bellinger had much competition, if any at all, getting 150 first-place votes from the BBWAA is virtually unheard of. In fact, it was just the fourth time that each recipient of the award received 100 percent of first-place votes.
Rookie of the Year duality
It took 36 years for the Rookie of the Year Award winners from each league to win unanimously for the first time. That year came in 1987.
Then 23-year-old Mark McGwire of the Oakland Athletics not only broke the rookie record for home runs with 49 but also led the entire league in both homers and slugging percentage. He was a member of the AL All-Star team and finished the season driving in an astonishing 118 runs.
In the National League in 1987, San Diego Padres catcher Benito Santiago took home the Rookie of the Year Award after posting a batting line of .300/.324/.467, hitting 18 home runs and driving in 79. The 22-year-old did not make the NL All-Star team but took home a Silver Slugger Award for his efforts.
Six seasons later, in 1993, the phenomenon occurred again. Twenty-four-year-old Mike Piazza of the Dodgers, now a member of the Hall of Fame, batted .318/.370/.561, making the NL All-Star team, taking home a Silver Slugger Award after hitting 35 home runs and collecting 112 RBI and of course being named the NL Rookie of the Year.
His counterpart Tim Salmon, of the then-named California Angels, didn’t have quite the year that Piazza had. He did, however, belt out 31 homers and collect 96 RBI. He also had an incredible on-base percentage of .382. Interestingly, despite Salmon’s many successes in the home run department, hitting at least 17 homers each year for 11 of his 14-year career (five of which he hit over the 30 home run mark), Salmon never made an AL All-Star team.
And until Monday the most recent occurrence of this rare event happened in 1997 when Boston Red Sox rookie, 23-year-old Nomar Garciaparra not only hit 30 homers and 90 RBI, he led the AL in at-bats, hits and triples, while also taking home a Silver Slugger Award and appearing on the AL All-Star roster.
His National League counterpart, 22-year-old Scott Rolen of the Philadelphia Phillies, batted .283 with an insane on-base percentage of .377 while hitting 21 home runs and driving in 92.
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It seems almost strange that more players have not been handed the Rookie of the Year Award unanimously in the same year. It seems like the choices should always be so clear.
However, to put this in perspective no player has ever been unanimously voted into the Hall of Fame. While winning the Rookie of the Year Award is obviously less prestigious, it just goes to show how hard it is for a player to excel so far above their peers.
We witnessed that this season as Judge hit 52 home runs, breaking McGwire’s 30-year-old rookie home run record, while Bellinger dominated on both sides of the ball in the National League.
It was history that we saw on Monday when Judge and Bellinger accepted their awards. Soon we may even see it happen for the first time in the Hall of Fame voting as well with names like Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter soon to be on the ballot.
Next: Altuve, Stanton headline MVP Award candidates
No matter the award, when a group of writers agrees unanimously on certain players being the best, it is certainly a rare occurrence. Judge and Bellinger gave us that gift when they won their 2017 Rookie of the Year Awards on Monday night.