By Ryan Finkelstein
Award season is in full swing and Pete Alonso is going to have to start clearing some room on his shelves for all of the hardware he is about to collect.
Last week, Alonso was unanimously named the Rookie of the Year by Baseball America and the official award is sure to be heading his way when the Rookies of the Year are announced on November 11th.
There is now another award that Alonso has been put up for, this time one that was voted on by his peers. Every season the Major League Baseball Players Association votes on their own awards, with Most Outstanding Rookie being one of them.
As MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo reports, Alonso has been nominated along with Mike Soroka and Bryan Reynolds as the NL finalists for the award. Whoever is named the winner will receive a $20,000 grant to be donated to the charity of their choosing.
Alonso has already proven to be rather charitable in the past, as he donated 10 percent of his $1 million prize for winning the home run derby to charity. Five percent was donated to the Wounded Warriors Project, which aids military veteran, and the other five percent went to the Tunnels to Towers Foundation, which raises money for the families of first responders.
Over the last five years, the player who has won the MLBPA Outstanding Rookie Award has gone on to win the Rookie of the Year, with Ronald Acuna Jr. taking home both honors last season. The last player to win the MLBPA’s Outstanding Rookie but not ultimately be named the Rookie of the Year was actually Todd Frazier in 2012.
Bryce Harper was named the NL Rookie of the Year that season, after hitting .270/.340/.477, with 22 home runs and 59 RBIs. Meanwhile Frazier hit .273/.331/.498, with 19 home runs and 67 RBIs.
With Alonso’s stat-line of .260/.358/.583, with an MLB-rookie record 53 home runs and 120 RBIs, there shouldn’t be any question of who wins the award this time around.
