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MLB Awards: AL Rookie of the Year Award top 5 contenders

By Bobby Mueller

NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 27: Gleyber Torres #25 of the New York Yankees hits a home run in the fourth inning during an MLB baseball game against the Chicago White Sox on August 27, 2018 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx borough of New York City. Chicago won 6-2. (Photo by Paul Bereswill/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 27: Gleyber Torres #25 of the New York Yankees hits a home run in the fourth inning during an MLB baseball game against the Chicago White Sox on August 27, 2018 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx borough of New York City. Chicago won 6-2. (Photo by Paul Bereswill/Getty Images) /
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KANSAS CITY, MO – AUGUST 31: Starting pitcher Brad Keller #56 of the Kansas City Royals throws in the first inning against the Baltimore Orioles at Kauffman Stadium on August 31, 2018 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Ed Zurga/Getty Images) /

Royal Rookie

SP Brad Keller
Fangraphs WAR: 1.6
Baseball-Reference WAR: 2.8
Wins Above Average: 1.7
Win Probability Added: 1.3

Brad Keller will NOT win the AL Rookie of the Year Award. That doesn’t mean he’s not deserving of some consideration. He’s in the mix among this final five with a month to go in the season. Keller’s biggest problem is that he’s on a team, the Kansas City Royals, that will lose over 100 games. They could lose 110 games. They are just awful.

Keller is not awful. He’s started 16 games and pitched in relief 21 times. He has a very nice 3.26 ERA in 113.3 innings. His Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) is 3.81. That’s a rough idea of how many earned runs he would allow per nine innings when you only consider his strikeout rate, walk rate, and rate of home runs allowed per nine innings.

Of course, Keller also has a 4.35 xFIP, which is similar to FIP except it uses a league average home run rate. Keller has more than a run difference between his actual ERA and his xFIP, which is not a good sign. He’s projected to have a 4.71 ERA over the remainder of the season by the Fangraphs Depth Charts. If he does that, he will fall out of AL ROY contention.

At the moment, though, Keller has been one of the few bright spots for the Royals during a very ugly season. He’s been their best pitcher and possibly their second best player overall, after Whit Merrifield. Keller is only 22 years old, so he may have a nice future in Kansas City.

As for the Royals’ immediate future, it doesn’t look good. The last time the Royals lost 100 games was in 2006 and they didn’t have a winning record again until 2013. If it takes them that long for them to have a winning record after this year’s 100-loss season, Keller will be approaching 30 years old the next time they’re good. By then, his rookie season will be a speck on the rearview mirror of his life.

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