Chicago Cubs‘ third baseman Patrick Wisdom has five more weeks to heist the National League Rookie of the Year Award from Jonathan India. He may make it.
That prospect seemed unthinkable as recently as a week or two ago. It wasn’t much farther back than that when India was among the league leaders in on base average for the Reds while Wisdom was a no-name replacement part for Kris Bryant, dispatched to San Francisco in the Cubs’ deadline housecleaning.
Patrick Wisdom taking off for Chicago Cubs
India hasn’t done much to diminish his standing among Rookie of the Year candidates. But Wisdom has flourished in his new role as centerpiece of what passes for the Cubs’ offense.
Given that India has all season been the chief table-setter for a potential playoff team, while Wisdom barely played during the season’s first two months, this may seem unfair to Reds fans. But Wisdom is on course to catch and possibly pass India in several categories that post-season voters pay close attention to.
He’s already passed India in a couple of those.
Just since Wednesday, Wisdom has hit five home runs and driven in nine. He now has substantial leads on the Reds’ leadoff hitter in three key categories: home runs (25 to 17), OPS (.907 to .840), and OPS+ (141 to 114).
With 50 RBIs — 10 of them this week — Wisdom is also gaining quickly on India’s 59 in that category.
India’s principal advantage compared with Wisdom is that he has done what he has done over the course of a full season. He has 497 plate appearances, more than 200 more than Wisdom’s 275.
In fact, one could make the argument that Wisdom, who has seen time in each of the past four big league seasons, ought not to be viewed as a rookie at all. He got 58 plate appearances for the Cardinals in 2018, 28 for the Rangers in 2019, and two for the Chicago Cubs last season.
India also continues to lead Wisdom in several other categories of significance: batting average (.272 to .259), WAR (2.7 to 2.5), and Win Probability Added (2.2 to 0.7).
Wisdom’s numbers, however, are building fast. If he repeats his offensive performance from the past five weeks over the final five, he projects to finish with 36 home runs, 75 RBIs, a .577 slugging average, and a .897 OPS. If that happens, he would lead India in all those categories.
He would also more than double his season-long Win Probability Added, taking it above 1.3.
That WPA total isn’t likely to catch India, who’s already at 2.2 WPA …but it might narrow the gap sufficiently to make Wisdom’s superiority in other categories attractive to voters. Over those past five weeks, Wisdom has piled up Win Probability Added at a rate more than twice as fast as India.