The Windup: NL ROY race could be a doozy (2024)

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The NL West is turning into a dogfight, and Ken brings up one reason why in his NL Rookie of the Year thoughts. Meanwhile, Aaron Judge is getting the Barry Bonds treatment, and we look at who’s trending up or down. I’mLevi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to The Windup!

Standings Watch: NL West is a race now

If you’d asked me in March to pick a blowout division, the NL West would be a slam dunk. The Dodgers spent over a billion dollars, and the Padres … traded Juan Soto. The Diamondbacks—yes, coming off a World Series —finished 16 games behind L.A. last year. Would Eduardo Rodriguez, Jordan Montgomery and Eugenio Suárez really allow them to keep pace? The Giants were good-not-great, and the Rockies exist.

But the Padres and D-Backs are both 8-2 in their last 10 games, tied at 66-53 and3 1/2 games behindthe Dodgers. It’s a race, friends.

One obvious explanation is the Dodgers’ injury woes, well-chronicled here and elsewhere. Reinforcements are on the way — Clayton Kershaw and Mookie Betts (albeitback in right field) are back. Max Muncy, Walker Buehler and Tommy Edman return soon, but pitching depth is a real issue. No fewer than11 starting pitchers(!!) have spent time on the IL this year. River Ryan looked like a miracle solution in his first four big-league starts (1.33 ERA), butnow has a UCL strain, and hisseason is over.

Meanwhile — yesterday’s loss notwithstanding, the Padres have been winning, andin exciting ways. The Diamondbacks have been immensely impressive over the last week, sweeping Cleveland and taking three of four from Philadelphia.

Both teams are dealing with injuries of their own. San Diego’s Luis Arraez is playing througha torn ligamentin his thumb. D-Backs starting pitcher Zac Gallen (cramps) and second baseman/MVP candidateKetel Marte (ankle) bothleft Saturday’s game early(though both appear to have avoided an IL stint). First baseman Christian Walker and catcher Gabriel Moreno, however, both recently hit the IL.

One other angle: The duo are also making the NL wild-card raceless interesting. They’re four games up on the Braves, who are clinging to the final spot with thesuddenly strugglingMets (half-game back), Cardinals (1 1/2), Giants (1 1/2) and thehang-on-a-minuteCubs (3) all trying to squeeze in the door.

Ken’s Notebook: Levels to the NL ROY conversation

It’s a little early for awards talk, but the race for National League Rookie of the Year already is shaping up as a doozy.

Two prominent questions seem likely to dominate the conversation: Is an everyday player preferable to a pitcher? And how strongly should voters consider players who technically are rookies but entered Major League Baseball as established foreign professionals?

With the season nearly three-fourths complete, the leading NL contenders appear to be Pirates right-hander Paul Skenes, Cubs lefty Shota Imanaga and Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill— though Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn, Brewers outfielder Jackson Chourio, Cubs first baseman Michael Busch and even Giants shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald also are worthy of mention.

Imanaga, 30, pitched eight seasons professionally in Japan, but still qualifies as a first-year player in the majors. Four previous Japanese players won an AL or NL rookie award — Hideo Nomo in 1995, Kazuhiro Sasaki in 2000, Ichiro Suzuki in 2001 and Shohei Ohtani in 2018. The difficulty of transitioning to a different country, different culture and even a different baseball makes such players worthy of full consideration.

The first question, then, is whether Imanaga (3.06 ERA in 123 1/3 innings) will end up more deserving than Skenes (2.25 ERA in 92 innings), particularly if the Pirates shut down Skenes before the end of the season.But the bigger question, perhaps, is whether Imanaga or Skenes is more deserving than a position player such as Merrill.

Before this season, Merrill had appeared in only 46 games above Class A. He had never played center field. Yet, he made the Padres’ Opening Day roster in center, and after an inconsistent first few months, has emerged as a stalwartfor a surging contender.

Merrill’s .291 batting average, 17 homers and .806 OPS are impressive, particularly in a season in which a number of other young hitters struggled with the jump from the minors to the majors. A recent run of clutch late-inning homers has further elevated Merrill’s candidacy, to the point where he might also get MVP votes.

Per Elias Sports and ESPN’s Sarah Langs, Merrill’s five game-tying or go-ahead home runs in the eighth inning or later this season tie him with Mel Ott (1929) for the second-most in a season at age 21 or younger since 1900. The only player with more such homers at that age: Frank Robinson, who had six in 1956.

If history is any indication, Merrill might rank as the current favorite for the NL award, but only slightly. Of the 77 past rookie winners, 40 were position players, or 52 percent. Excepting Ohtani, who was honored as a pitcher and hitter, the last starter to win was the Tigers’ Michael Fulmer in 2016. Only six other starters this century have captured the award.

Get ready for a lively debate. The final seven weeks will determine just how intense it gets.

Free Passes: Judge getting Bonds treatment

Andy McCullough has a good one today on a growing trend in baseball: managersholding up four fingerswhen Aaron Judge strides to the plate. In the Yankees’ most recent homestand (nine games), Judge was walked 12 times —six of themintentional.

• As illustrated in Sunday’s win, the strategy isn’t foolproof. Rangers manager Bruce Bochy — an early adopter of “the Barry Bonds treatment” when he managed the Padres — walked Judge in the fifth inning. Giancarlo Stanton’s subsequent blast allowed Judge to keep jogging for three more bases.
• In the seventh (after Juan Soto’s second home run of the game), Bochy allowed Andrew Chafin to pitch to Judge. That didn’t work either. Judge’s 299th career home run accounted for the eighth run in what was ultimately an 8-7 win.

Judge leads baseball with 42 home runs (on pace for roughly 57), so it’s not surprising that teams have begun doing this. What might be surprising: that they didn’t start earlier. Judge now has just 12 intentional passes this year (tied with Houston’s Yordan Álvarez for the league lead).If this week’s pace (six in nine games) had started on Opening Day, he would have 79 — a 108-intentional-walk pace.

The second-most in one season? Bonds, of course, with 68 in 2002. That pales in comparison to 2004, in which he was intentionally walked a hilarious 120 times. That year’s totals? 617 plate appearances, 373 at-bats (and still, 45 home runs. Sheesh.).

Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down: Checking in on the last 10 games

Ten games is a small sample size over a 162-game season, but it does serve the purpose of seeing who’s doing wellright now. Let’s see who’s trending.

Caveat: Unless otherwise noted, assume the White Sox are permanently in the thumbs down category. Also, we already talked about the Padres and D-Backs, so let’s spread the love.

Trending Up

👍Houston Astros (62-55, 7-3 in last 10): They sandwiched in a three-game losing streak between wins, butswept Bostonover the weekend. Yordan Álvarez islooking postseason-ready, and Houston’s tied with …

👍Seattle Mariners (63-56, 6-4): They just swept the Mets to hang on to a share of first place. With Julio Rodríguez freshly off the IL, they’re in a dogfight, but they’ve started to heat up.

👍 Chicago Cubs (59-60, 7-3): Are wesurethey’re out of it? Of the four teams between them and a playoff spot, only the Giants (61-59, 7-3) have a winning record in their last 10 games.

Trending Down

👎Cleveland Guardians (69-49, 3-7): They’ve won their last two, but those followed a seven-game losing streak. They could’ve buried the Twinsbut didn’t. They still hold a 3.5-game division lead.

👎Texas Rangers (55-63, 3-7): They were 2 1/2 games back on July 25. Since then: five straight series losses. They’re 7 1/2 games back now, scrambling for starting pitching, and all but dead in the water.

👎New York Mets (61-57, 4-6): We could just as easily have put the Braves (61-56, 3-7) here, but we alreadywrote about them. They’re a half-game out of a playoff spot, but missed an opportunity to grab it this week.

Handshakes and High Fives

That big Guardians/Twins series wetold you about on Friday? Theysplit it, 2-2. Now Minnesota tries to hang on to a half-game lead over the visiting Royals.

A fun one from Andrew Baggarly, who canvassed the Giants clubhouse toscout for potential future Olympians.

Angels first-round pick Christian Moore has been red-hot. Further, it’s the Angels, who have a track record of calling up prospects earlier than most.Is Moore next?

Rod Carew has lived in the States since he was 14 years old. At 78, he is, at long last,an American citizen.

Camilo Doval was an All-Star last year. Now he’sin the minor leagues.

Most-clicked in Friday’s newsletter: Jon Greenberg’s look atpotential candidates to replace Pedro Grifol as White Sox manager.

Most-read MLB story on the website yesterday:The first part of our Missing Bats series from June, in which Andy McCullough explored the evolution of baseball’s obsession with strikeouts.

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(Top photo of Merrill: Sam Navarro / USA Today)