Not only is Sal Stewart the first player to 100 RBI, but he is the first rookie with a 100-RBI season since Pete Alonso in 2019!
If we’re just talking about counting stats, he prob should be roy. 10 years ago he’s easily roy
This years award voting is going to be interesting. Defense and WAR seem to have magnifying glasses on them this year.
The NL ROY best hitter, probably won’t win. The AL MVP will probably not have the highest WAR The NL MVP will win because of the elite defense and higher WAR.
Its kinda nice to see awars voting take a step back from just being offensive awards, but it’s definitely a change. I think PCA has really changed how the average baseball person values defense.
I understand Yordan leads in all triple crown categories as of this moment but the fact the Junior caminero is 2nd in AL mvp odds and not Bobby kind of doesn’t follow the same story as the ROY voting seems to follow. AL MVP odds seem to be totally traditional with absolutely no measure of defensive value. I understand that Yordan has like a 200 WRC+ or whatever, but Caminero shouldn’t be MVP-2 over Bobby at this point.
Don’t get it wrong, awards are still heavily based on offense. A DH is going to win AL MVP. PCA’s defense is part of why he may win, but he’s also leading the NL in wRC+.
I also think that Stewart not winning ROTY is far from the sure thing people on here think it is.
That DH is going to win because he’s been so much better on offense, Sal has not in the grand scheme.
“The NL MVP will win because of elite defensive and higher WAR”
No, PCA also leads the league in Slugging and has elite speed too. If he wins MVP it’s because he’s the most deserving.
The way everyone talks about Sal, like yes he’s been the best NL rookie hitter but it isn’t like there’s some crazy gap between him and Benge as a hitter this year. He has a 117 WRC+ to Benge’s 116, the big gap is RBIs which is just so dependent on others to an extent I have too hard of a time caring about it.
The reds have the worst offense in baseball. It’s not like Sal has had that many more opportunities than the other guys.
I just don’t care about stats like RBIs or Wins that for the most part are very reliant on people around you getting themselves in a position to score, or you need someone else to drive you in, etc etc. you’re allowed to if you want, I don’t.
What stats do you care about then?
Also if those stats don’t matter then Keybryan Hayes should have already been an MVP
He is in our hearts
Huh? Hayes is a terrible hitter, offense matters. I care about WRC+, OPS+, like even OPS matters, I don’t care about stats that are dependent on someone else on your team.
Player A can have the exact same season statistically as player B but have half the RBIs because they played for a worse team.
And why bring up Hayes? You’re being so disingenuous with that comment, he’s just ass offensively. That has nothing to do with RBIs being a bad stat due to the dependence on situation.
What about JJs?
It’s like 107, which is lower but still not some massive gap to make up for the difference in other value.
Like we’ve seen guys put up massive WAR numbers based purely on offense alone, there’s a reason Sal isn’t and it’s because he hasn’t truly been anything that special as a hitter.
For perspective Yordan has a 186 WRC+ while Witt is at 126, that’s a massive gap.
the big gap is RBIs which is just so dependent on others to an extent I have too hard of a time caring about it.
Because being last in the league in OBP is such a recipe for RBI success.
So Sal has gotten all those RBIs by just scoring himself? Like the Reds offense as a whole sucks but he has Elly de La Cruz hitting in front of him who does not and gets on base at a perfectly fine clip.
Yeah people are drawing really superficial conclusions about Stewart’s RBI total based on the team he plays on. Entering today he had 229 ABs with runners on base (3-way tie for 9th most). But that’s just the nature of RBI. It’s a superficial, opportunity-driven stat. And he’s had a lot of opportunities all things considered.
People talk about Sal Stewart like he’s as good as Nick Kurtz last year on offense. It’s genuinely insane. People are brainwashed by the RBIs
But also Caminero plays on the 1 seed in the AL and Bobby Witt’s team is damn near dead last in the league. You know that also goes into discussions like this
I think he’s clearly Sal, not Roy
Hate when Brewers fans make me laugh
Right
Wow all that to finish 4th in ROY
How?
By 3 other guys getting more votes for rookie of the year
What makes you say that
Okay I’ve been watching this gif for 8 minutes now but I still haven’t gotten the joke to load
He’s going to finish 2nd. WAR voters will under rank him, traditional voters will likely have him at 1 or 2, but Weatherholt is good enough to garner enough 2nd, 3rd, 4th votes to withstand the traditional voters bias
He plays on the Reds
Because there are 3 rookies better than him in the NL?
Hello again, spammer
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It’s weird how often you’re posting about this, OP
Maybe I’m Sal Stewart
Non zero chance you’re a relative with as much as you post about him
He’s having a fantastic rookie season and I believe is being undervalued. Wins above replacement shouldnt be the end all, be all.
He’s having a fantastic rookie season and I believe is being valued correctly. RBI totals shouldnt be the end all, be all.
Dude has 100 rbis on a team that is ranked in the bottom of every hitting metric. Dwar is a flawed metric and under values the first basemen who is far more valuable than a 2b. Jj weatherholt will be bucketed with Jonathan India. Joey Votto has a great take on this in a recent interview.
Sal isn’t really undervalued, he just isn’t truly having some great offensive season. Like he’s obviously been good but as a hitter he hasn’t really been that much better than Carson Benge unless you really care about RBIs that much.
Dwar is a flawed metric and under values the first basemen who is far more valuable than a 2b
WAR’s defensive component isn’t what’s undervaluing Sal Stewart, at least compared to Wetherholt. It’s actually the offensive component. Per FanGraphs’ live stats:
Stewart - 8.9 offensive runs
Wetherholt - 8.2 offensive runs
On Baseball Reference the difference is more pronounced but still a relatively small gap (entering today Stewart has 13 batting runs versus Wetherholt’s 9, so like ~0.5 wins in his favor).
Don’t get me wrong, the defensive component is still playing a notable role here but it’s mainly that for his position and ballpark, Stewart hasn’t been that good of a hitter according to WAR. If he was as good as we’re saying he is, then his WAR would be much closer to Wetherholt’s. Especially since neither version of WAR is dinging him that bad for defense.
Edit: would also like to clarify that I’m not necessarily making an argument for or against either player here, just trying to explain why the WAR gap is as big as it is
What exactly is he being undervalued for? He has been good with RISP, but JJ and Sal are not really comparable enough as players for that to actually matter. JJ is a just a better player, and Benge has also been better thus far as well.
This attitude just makes you look silly.
2 of the past 4 ROY winners had a lower WAR than the runner-up, so you’re not wrong.
Despite the betting market being 50⁄50, I’d be pretty surprised if Stewart doesn’t win, based on how voters have went in the recent past. He’s also the best hitter in clutch situations in the NL, I believe.
Context matters here, Skenes had a lower WAR at least partially due to the fact he didn’t start the year on the roster. Also 4⁄4 have had higher bWARs. That Luis Gil year was also just a terrible ROTY race overall.
Sal and the others here have all been up since the start of the year.
I would guess this race may end up like the 2019 AL race: Yordan Alvarez won Rookie of the Year despite finishing with a lower bWAR than Brandon Lowe and John Means.
Because Alvarez was a pure DH, the metrics penalized him heavily for his lack of defense, but his raw, middle-of-the-order offensive dominance was just too overwhelming for voters to ignore.
That’s the lane Sal Stewart is in right now. Wetherholt’s 4.5 bWAR advantage is almost entirely built on his premium second-base defense, whereas Stewart is putting up a nuclear offensive season with a league-leading 100+ RBIs.
Odds are basically even. so if anyone feels strongly one way or another, which I don’t, then they may want to consider how older voters especially tend to discount defense-driven data. Wetherholt has a 3.7 fWAR compared to Stewart’s 3.2 fWAR, and Stewart having the best offensive rookie season in a half decade is likely enough for some voters to bridge that gap.
This is the definition of a coin flip imo.
Yordan had less WAR because he only played 87 games lol, he was massively outpacing both Means and Lowe on a per game basis, Sal is not.
Yordan was a much much much better hitter that year than Sal has been this year.
Also your fWAR numbers are completely wrong, Sal has 2.4 fWAR
Oops, I stand corrected on the fWAR numbers.
Still doesn’t take away the distinction about WAR not being indicative of who wins the award, and how voters react in general to offensive powerhouses over mediocre-hitting excellent defenders.
If Wetherholt wins the award this year, he would be the ROY winner with the lowest OPS since 2003. Choosing that over the guy with the best offensive rookie season in a half-decade seems… not likely to me. Even the more defensive-minded or contact-oriented winners comfortably exceeded a .725 OPS.
If you think this isn’t a close race, and are strongly confident in JJ winning, then you can win a lot of money! Pretty obvious this is a toss-up though.
I didn’t say it isn’t a close race, your points are all just wrong or have massive flaws/holes in them lol
Apart from the fWAR numbers, and that error being irrelevant to the larger point that WAR doesn’t dictate the winner, not sure what you’re referring to.
The point regarding Alvarez was that WAR doesn’t dictate the ROY winner, and there are other aspects to consider, including games played/sample and whether the WAR is driven by offense or defense, with the former historically preferred by writers. Plenty of examples of that otherwise over the past couple decades.
What’s more unprecedented than someone with a lower WAR winning is someone with an OPS of .725 or below winning. That hasn’t happened since 2003.
That you keep bringing up Yordan or saying he’s having the best offensive season in half a decade for a rookie purely cuz of RBIs lol
Wetherholt has a higher wpa if you are looking for clutch stats.
That’s true, but calling WPA a pure ‘clutch’ metric is highly debatable. WPA measures total cumulative context, meaning it takes into account every single plate appearance across the entire season, regardless of whether it’s a true pressure moment.
When Wetherholt draws a leadoff walk in the 2nd inning of a scoreless game, his WPA ticks up because the math says his team is slightly more likely to win. That’s good baseball, but it’s not what people mean by ‘clutch.’
Stewart dominates the actual high-stress, late-inning moments, as shown by his 1.034 OPS in defined high-leverage situations compared to Wetherholt’s .728.
Also worth noting that If Wetherholt wins the award this year, he would be the ROY winner with the lowest OPS since 2003.
What’s the sample size for both in those situations?
High-leverage samples are always small. usually 70 to 90 plate appearances per season.
Wetherholt’s higher WPA isn’t driven by late-game pressure (where his OPS is a mediocre .728).
WPA proves Wetherholt is a great, consistent table-setter, which no one is arguing. It does not prove he is ‘clutcher’ than Stewart when the game is on the line, though, and Stewart’s clutcher ability combined with having the best offensive rookie season in over a half decade is why markets see this as a true 50⁄50.
Again, defensive metrics are almost always neglected by voters relative to offensive stats. Ask Andrelton Simmons. This discussion is about who baseball writers are voting for. Not who is “statistically” the best player. Those things aren’t always aligned.
Just not sure why I should really care about a stat that has a 70-90 PA sample when it comes to judging a players season
Also Stewart hasn’t had close to the best offensive rookie season in half a decade, like Kurtz last year alone was easily better lol
“I reject a reality that doesn’t support my argument”
It’s one of many aspects that writers tend to consider, along with historical aspects like having the best offensive season by a rookie in over a hafl-decade.
They’ll also consider that If Wetherholt wins the award this year, he would be the ROY winner with the lowest OPS since 2003.
If writers actually cared about defense as a priority when voting then JJ would be 80%+ to win the award as opposed to ~40%.
I assumed Andrelton Simmons losing in 2013 with a 6.7 WAR was proof enough that WAR driven enormously by defense and nothing else is not something voters tend to latch onto. Granted that was awhile ago, but many of the same voters are still there. Simmons and Yordan Alvarez ROY races are relevant enough.
Voters from 2013 to now are drastically different. And again, Kurtz had a better rookie season offensively literally last year.
Yordan in 2019 was easily the best rookie on a per game basis, you keep acting like every rookie plays 162 games. Sal and his competition have all played a similar number of games.
Yordan put up 3.8 fWAR in essentially half a season and was on a 7 fWAR pace, that’s why he won.
In what universe is this the best offensive season by a rookie in over a half decade LOL what? How important are RBIs?? Murakami is literally hard gapping Sal this season. And if you look at a relevant offensive metric like wrc+, Sal is not even top 5 for rookies. RBIs are such a useless statistic.
Since the historic, ball-juiced peak of 2019, league-wide offensive output has dropped sharply, with the collective OPS falling by over 40 points (from .758 down to .717) and overall slugging percentages plummeting to near-historic lows. That context needs to be regarded when evaluating Stewart’s offensive accomplishments relative to other rookies the half past decade or so.
In regards to Murakami, ROY voters largely regarded Hideki Matsui as an illegitimate ROY considering his extensive experience in Japan, so not really prudent to count Murakami as a “rookie” in this regard either, relative to how voters perceive it, especially compared to someone like Stewart, who is a legitimate rookie.
Becoming the the first rookie to reach the 100-RBI threshold since 2019 is clearly enough to consider this one of the best rookie offensive campaigns the last half decade, especially when his other counting stats are impressive as well, and league-wide offensive numbers are drastically down relative to a half decade ago.
Really hitting a nerve with Cardinals fans here, but I guess it’s the only thing left for them to watch this season.
I’m a Cards fan and I think he beats JJ for best rookie.
Only if the voters are morons.
I guess it just comes down to whether you prefer offense or defense
I prefer the best overall player.
-you prefer an evaluation they lends your favorite player in the best light.*
I’m not sure he wins ROY but if the Reds are smart, they have a new franchise cornerstone on their hand. This is the kind of guy you want to keep around
“But the Reds are smart”
LMAO
A typo can cost much in the scheme of things
Another way of saying jj is not a cornerstone.
He’s a cornerstone of the Cardinals, who are a team Sal Stewart notably does not play for
Is that good?!
Is 2019 that long ago?