The beat writers of MLB.com conducted a poll to gauge their early frontrunners for the American and National League Rookies of the Year.
While the group has San Diego Padres right-hander Chris Paddack leading the way in the NL (24 first-place votes to New York Mets slugger Pete Alonso‘s six) after a little more than a quarter of the season in the record books, these two are pretty much leading the way among all of MLB’s young prodigies.
These two had a well-publicized spat ahead of the Mets’ early-May visit to San Diego. Paddack — who appeared to be a bit miffed that Alonso was named NL Rookie of the Month for April — issued a fair warning, telling reporters he was”coming for [Alonso]”.
The 23-year-old came out on top in their first battle, producing 7.2 shutout innings for the Padres, allowing four hits with 11 strikeouts and one base-on-balls (Alonso went 0-for-4 in the May 6 matchup), but this rivalry is just heating up.
As of Tuesday, both Pete Alonso and Chris Paddack were among the top of a bevy of high-value statistical categories among fellow MLB rookies.
Alonso’s 16 home runs and 36 RBI are both tops among qualified rookie hitters — fourth (tied with San Diego’s Franmil Reyes) and 10th, respectively, among all MLB batters. In fact, his .343 isolated power metric (ISO), 1.7 wins above replacement (FanGraphs), .393 wOBA, and 155 wRC+ all rank first among qualifying MLB rookies.
Paddack’s line is a bit more impressive — likely explaining the landslide-ish voting results linked above — but not by much.
The young Texan’s 1.93 ERA is second among rookies and fifth among all qualified MLB starters, his 2.74 FIP, 3.48 xFIP, and 1.5 fWAR all set the bar among qualified rookie starters, and his 9.82 strikeouts and 1.93 walks per nine rank fourth and third among fellow neophytes, respectively.
Both Alonso (.206/.286/.540 slash line through 66 plate appearances in May) and, to a lesser extent, Paddack (he had one rough start; a 4.2-inning, six-run (three earned), three-strikeout, one walk outing versus the Dodgers on May 14) have had some downtimes, but things aren’t looking to settle down anytime soon.
Paddack and Alonso both appear to be trending in the right direction and there’s a whole lot of season left — plenty of time for both of these young ballplayers to make their cases.
And not to be overlooked, the Padres come to Flushing for a three-game set starting on July 23. We can only hope we get an Alonso vs. Paddack rematch with both guys still leading the way among their rookie brethren.
