Hypothetical Ballot: Rookie of the Year

Let's assume for a moment that you care about post-season awards (I've lost at least 30% of you).

Then let's suppose you care about my opinion about how should win them (another 50% gone...I'd guess higher but you are reading this blog after all).

So for the 20% of you left (those percentages were based on the original population for those checking math), do you care about who I think should finish second - fifth on a ballot for awards which will almost certainly and deservedly be unanimously decided? Especially if the awards in question are Rookie of the Year?

I didn't think so. Rookie of the Year is the least interesting award for a number of reasons, including but not limited to:

1. For as much as people like to argue about what "valuable" means, RoY has even more contentious questions: how much should perceived future potential outweigh current year performance, and how should players who are new to the Major Leagues but veterans of high-level professional baseball in other countries (or in segregated leagues when the award was young) be treated?

2. While winning a RoY award might become a part of the standard broadcaster rundown and a line in the Baseball Register (RIP), it rarely takes on any significance beyond that. In contrast, Cy Youngs and MVPs enter a feedback loop of subjective awards when they are cited in Hall of Fame discussions.

Because of this, particularly #2, downballot selections on the Cy Young or MVP ballot take on a little more importance, even if the winner of the award gets so many first place votes that the downballot choices don't factor into the outcome. Award shares, top 5 MVP finishes, etc. may not be that important in the grand scheme of things--but compared to who finished fourth in the RoY voting, they might as well be the list of pennant winners.

This is a long-winded way of saying that:

1) Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger are going to, and should, easily win the 2017 RoYs
2) The 20% of you who might theoretically have some interest in this post really aren't going to care who I say should be fourth. It was more fun to write this explanation than to write a detailed breakdown of why I think
Yuli Gurriel deserved to rank ahead of Trey Mancini while still having a respectable word count for a blog post:

AL:
1. RF Aaron Judge, NYA
2. SP Jordan Montgomery, NYA
3. 1B Yuli Gurriel, HOU
4. RF Mitch Haniger, SEA
5. 1B Trey Mancini, BAL

NL:
1. 1B Cody Bellinger, LA
2. SS Paul DeJong, STL
3. SP German Marquez, COL
4. SP Kyle Freeland, COL
5. SP Trevor Williams, PIT