The most anticipated end of season baseball award is usually the respective league MVPs. This season is no exception. In the AL, we want to find out if voters were successfully persuaded to vote for Tigers’ pitcher Justin Verlander and in the NL, we want to know which of the plethora of qualified candidates took home the hardware.
This year, the second most exciting award was the Rookies of the Year. The NL award was pretty easy to guess. Craig Kimbrel broke the 1 year old rookie saves record and had a strikeout/ 9IP rate over 14. He made 38 straight appearances at one point without allowing a run and, along with Johnny Venters, was part of the most electric and feared back end of a bullpen in recent memory. Kimbrel received all of the 1st place votes, as well he should have. The AL, however, was a bit more contentious.
The field included Rays’ starter Jeremy Hellickson, who went 13-10 with a sub-3 ERA for the wild card winners, Mark Trumbo, who hit .254 with 29 homers and 87 RBIs for the Angels, Eric Hosmer, who socked 19 bombs and had 78 RBIs to go along with his .293 AVG for the Royals, Ivan Nova, who was 16-4 with a 3.70 ERA for the Yankees, and Dustin Ackely, who, while playing for the Mariners, hit .273 with 6 HRs and 36 RBI.
Hellickson ran away with the voting, receiving 17 of a possible 28 first place votes. Voters were clearly swayed by his superb 2.95 ERA and stellar performances down the stretch. It’s really hard to make an argument against Hellickson and I wont try to. Instead, I’m going to argue for Ivan Nova. In doing that, I’m going to discount the other candidates. Clearly, the numbers from Hosmer and Ackely, though good, pale in comparison to Mark Trumbo. Trumbo was a force in the middle of the Angels lineup this year and definitely a deserving ROY candidate. I’m dissuaded, as were many of the voters, I’d imagine, by his .254 batting average. Nova and Hellickson are definitely better choices.
Ivan Nova had 16 wins and an ERA of 3.70. I understand that 3.70 is higher than 2.95 but it’s still more than respectable for any starting pitcher, let alone a rookie, so I’m not going to count a “high” ERA against Nova. Next, Ivan won 16 games. I know that wins have had a decreased value of late but realize that he won 16 games despite SPENDING A MONTH IN AAA in the middle of the season so the Yankees could recall Phil Hughes from the DL. If Nova had played all year, he would have had a legitimate shot at 20 wins. As a rookie. If that’s not enough, consider that he pitched well enough to be the scheduled game 2 starter in the ALDS for a franchise with enough resources to amass significant pitching depth (that they didn’t is besides the point.) For most of the season, Nova was the Yankees’ second best starter behind CC Sabathia and instead of being crushed by that pressure, he stepped up and won 16 games with a more than respectable ERA. That’s got to be worth something.
I’m not trying to take anything from Jeremy Hellickson, he deserved this honor. All I’m saying is that Ivan Nova deserved a whole lot more than 1 first place vote.
-Max Frankel
