Comparing Jeremy Peña, Julio Rodríguez for AL Rookie of the Year
By Kevin Henry
When it comes to the 2022 AL Rookie of the Year Award, it could well be a two-man race between Jeremy Peña of the Houston Astros and Julio Rodríguez of the Seattle Mariners.
Not only are the two stellar rookies American League West division rivals, they are also the pair of players who have risen to the top of the odds when it comes to who could take home the coveted award.
According to the odds at WynnBet, it’s a wide gap between Rodríguez, who has the second-best odds to win the AL Rookie of the Year award, coming in at +300, Peña, who is the current odds-on favorite (+275), and the rest of the field. While those two have risen to the top, other rookies who were expected to perhaps make bigger impacts with their teams have faded in the odds, including Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. (+800) and Detroit’s Spencer Torkelson (+1200).
In our initial AL Rookie of the Year Power Rankings, we rated Rodríguez third and didn’t have Peña on the list. It just shows how much can change, even at what many still consider to be an early point of the 2022 schedule.
Through roughly the first quarter of the campaign, how have the two separated themselves from the competition? Let’s take a look at some of the numbers and the highlights for a pair of rookies who find themselves in different environments, who entered the season with different expectations, play different positions and bring different skills sets to those positions, and find their teams at opposite ends of the standings as Memorial Day approaches.