Checking In with Top Rookies

Just before the season started, the FanGraphs staff (including RotoGraphs contributors) was asked to make its official predictions for the upcoming season. We took our best shot at predicting the playoff teams, MVP and Cy Young Award winners, and Rookies of the Year for 2017. Perhaps in the coming weeks we will check in with the top picks for MVP and Cy Young, but in this article, we’re going to look at the top rookies.

Our staff picks on the American League side had Andrew Benintendi (40 votes) as the overwhelming favorite to be named the league’s top rookie, with Jharel Cotton (4) and Mitch Haniger (4) rounding out the top three.

Over in the National League, Dansby Swanson (27 votes) was the favorite by a wide margin, followed by Robert Gsellman (12), Manuel Margot (5), and Hunter Renfroe (4).

While it’s extremely early and still much too soon to make any concrete statements about who will win this year’s awards, let’s take a look at the wide-ranging early season performances of the players we expect to be the game’s top newcomers:

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Andrew Benintendi: The Red Sox rookie has been as advertised. Through 59 plate appearances, he’s hitting .314/.390/.431 with a .326 BABIP and as many walks (5) as strikeouts. Despite his rookie status, Benintendi already appears to be a reliably above-average offensive contributor, albeit with limited home run upside. Right out of the gate, that assumption has held true, as Benintendi has only one home run through the first 13 games of the season. Regardless, Benintendi remains right on track to justify the overwhelming support he received as the staff pick to be the American League’s top rookie in 2017.

Jharel Cotton: Like Benintendi, Cotton has more or less met expectations so far this year. In three starts, he boasts an impressive 2.96 FIP (mostly thanks to not yet allowing a home run), but he’s struck out 13 in and walked nine in 16 2/3 innings — not great in either department. However, the league now has just a .115 wOBA against his changeup, which Eno Sarris thinks is among the best in the game. The pitch has generated swings 53.3% of the time despite being in the strike zone just 33.1% of the time; thus, it has an O-Swing% of 40.7%. Cotton is an intriguing arm moving forward, but don’t expect the moon. At least so far this year, he needs the strikeout rate to go up and the walk rate to come down.

Mitch Haniger: Haniger has been a rip-roaring success so far in Seattle. He’s batting .291/.400/.564  with a .414 wOBA and 178 wRC+, so mark him down as one of those hitters who’s reminding us that we still have a long way to go before we have a large enough sample size to really evaluate what we’re seeing. However, Haniger now has a career BABIP right in line with where the projections expect him to be moving forward (.286) and he has an impressive .342 wOBA to go along with that sustainable BABIP. In just 188 career plate appearances, he now has nine home runs and 15 extra base hits. His strikeout rate is a manageable 23.4%. ZiPS expects Haniger to be an above-average hitter (101 wRC+) moving forward, but there’s upside for more. While the batting may fall back into the .240-.250 range, Haniger has intriguing upside and seems like a decent bet to exceed his modest projections.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

Dansby Swanson: The overwhelming favorite to win the NL’s Rookie of the Year Award has struggled mightily in the season’s early going, last night’s walk-off single aside. Through 55 plate appearances, Swanson has just eight hits and two walks. Swanson batted .302/.361/.442 in 145 plate appearances last season, but much of his success was fueled by a .383 BABIP. ZiPS forecasts a .299 BABIP for the remainder of the season (it’s just .175 so far this year), and a .246/.314/.391 line. That would be a disappointing season for Swanson, and one that would certainly threaten his odds of winning honors as the league’s top rookie. Swanson is just 23 years old and projects as a plus defender at shortstop, but he’s going to need to dramatically exceed his offensive projections if he’s going to be the above-average-across-the-board type of player people think he can be. However, through 195 plate appearances in his major league career, his underwhelming .258/.312/.379 line is eerily similar to his rest-of-season ZiPS projection. Think of Swanson as a long-term project; don’t expect star impact this year or maybe even for years to come.

Robert Gsellman: Gsellman was battered around for eight earned runs in 4 2/3 innings against the Marlins in his last outing. Despite the rough start, the Mets righty still has some intriguing peripheral numbers on the season. He has 13 strikeouts in 10 2/3 innings, and his xFIP for the season, 3.40, is almost the same as his career xFIP (3.39). In 44 2/3 innings last year, he had an unsustainable 0.20 HR/9, whereas in just 10 2/3 innings this year, he has allowed 1.69 HR/9. Normalizing the home run rates in both seasons brings his xFIP right around 3.40, which would be a terrific place for Gsellman to settle in as a starter. His career ground ball rate is good at 53.6%, so limiting home runs shouldn’t be too much of an issue, and indeed he is projected at 1.08 HR/9 by ZiPS for the remainder of the year. Where the projections differ from reality thus far on Gsellman is the strikeout rate. ZiPS forecasts just 7.39 K/9 ROS from Gsellman; meanwhile, he’s struck out 8.95 batters per nine innings in his brief career. If Gsellman can continue to strike batters out, and his HR/FB rate stabilizes around the league average, he should be a very good starting pitcher.

Manuel Margot: Margot got off to such a torrid start with power at the plate that his performance warranted this restrained but optimistic look into his offensive upside. Now, through 60 plate appearances, Margot boasts a .500 SLG and .232 ISO, both greatly exceeding his meager power projections. Margot doesn’t walk much — he has a .289 OBP in 97 career plate appearances and he’s projected at a .299 OBP by ZiPS moving forward this year. However, with three home runs and four doubles already under his belt, there remains the possibility of double-digit home runs and 20+ stolen bases with a respectable batting average. Don’t expect Margot to turn into a star just yet, but he’s an interesting player to watch develop. Just 22 years old and toolsy, Margot could put it all together and become a very good hitter.

Hunter Renfroe: Renfroe has batted 55 times this year, and he has zero walks. Despite his aggressive tendencies, his strikeout rate is 20% this year and just 17.6% in his young career, much lower than the 27.2% ZiPS forecasts for the rest of the season. Renfroe appears to be mostly who we thought he was — a guy who will give you a decent (.240-.250) batting average with very little plate discipline, and plus power. He has three home runs so far this season, and ZiPS projects him to hit 22 more. This is not a player to get too excited about, particularly in OBP leagues, but Renfroe won’t completely kill you with batting average and should be a solid source of dingers.