{"id":514527,"date":"2026-01-11T04:25:58","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T04:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/514527\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T04:25:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T04:25:58","slug":"why-the-orioles-will-have-the-american-league-rookie-of-the-year-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/514527\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Orioles will have the American League Rookie of the Year in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

After losing in the 2016 Wildcard round to the Toronto Blue Jays in devastating fashion, GM Dan Duquette decided to tear it all down the become sellers.<\/p>\n

Baltimore traded away fan favorites Manny Machado, Johnathan Schoop, Nick Markakis and others nearly a decade ago, resulting in one of the more successful rebuilds in recent memory.<\/p>\n

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Mike Elias became the new Orioles GM in 2018 and has done a remarkable job bringing the franchise back to relevance.<\/p>\n

Since the start of 2023, Baltimore is 6th in wins with 267.<\/p>\n

A lot of that successes attributed to Baltimore’s elite farm system and player development. One prime example of this is Gunnar Henderson.<\/p>\n

Henderson won the 2023 American League Rookie of the Year award, after hitting 28 home runs and driving in 82 RBI’s.<\/p>\n

Baltimore nearly had consecutive rookie of the year award winners in 2023-24 with Colton Cowser, as he finished 2nd behind only Luis Gil of the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n

However, I believe that the American League Rookie of the Year award will come back to Baltimore in 2026.<\/p>\n

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Baltimore has two elite rookie of the year candidates in catcher Samuel Basallo and outfielder Dylan Beavers.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of the Baltimore Orioles<\/p>\n

Basallo is the flashier of the two, as he was the 8th overall prospect in all of baseball last season.<\/p>\n

Basallo got called up to the major leagues on August 17, 2025 and he did not disappoint in his debut. Basallo went 1-for-4 with two RBI’s, leading Baltimore to victory over the Houston Astros.<\/p>\n

Although Basallo ended the season poorly with a .559 OPS, the potential and advanced metrics point towards a huge year from Basallo in 2026.<\/p>\n

The 20 year-old had his signature moment in September, where he walked off the Los Angeles Dodgers at home for his first ever home run at Camden Yards.<\/p>\n

Basallo was one of, if not, the best player in the minor leagues last season.<\/p>\n

Basallo is projected to have a .240\/.308\/.436 slash-line with a 1.6 WAR in 2026.<\/p>\n

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Dylan Beavers had a much different path than Basallo, as he was never regarded as a top prospect at the time he was drafted. Beavers was drafted with the 33rd overall pick in the 2022 MLB Draft.<\/p>\n

He was the 11th ranked prospect for Baltimore in 2023, 8th in 2024, but shot up to 2nd in 2025 due to his elite hitting profile.<\/p>\n

Beavers made his MLB debut one day before Basallo, on August 16, 2025.<\/p>\n

Beavers took the MLB by storm in the month of August, going 14-for-44 with an on base percentage off .434 and a .911 OPS.<\/p>\n

Beavers is expected to have a significant role for Baltimore in 2026, as right now he’s slotted in to be Baltimore’s starting right fielder.<\/p>\n

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According to FanGraphs, Beavers is projected to have a .243\/.339\/.399 slash-line in 2026 with a 1.6 WAR.<\/p>\n

Basallo and Beavers are going to have to beat out the likes of Trey Yesavage, Tatsuya Imai, Munetaka Murakami and others for the award.<\/p>\n

I believe that with the proper opportunities and training, one of Basallo and Beavers will bring the American League Rookie of the Year award back to the city of Baltimore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After losing in the 2016 Wildcard round to the Toronto Blue Jays in devastating fashion, GM Dan Duquette…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2374],"tags":[152,143,47,2538,5,1125,68121,13462,916,54,57,2277,1527,4,73,62,60585,727,125,10,59491,7326,4658,70,5196],"class_list":["post-514527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baltimore-orioles","tag-american-league","tag-baltimore","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-baltimoreorioles","tag-baseball","tag-colton-cowser","tag-dan-duquette","tag-dylan-beavers","tag-gunnar-henderson","tag-houston-astros","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-luis-gil","tag-manny-machado","tag-mlb","tag-munetaka-murakami","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-nick-markakis","tag-ops","tag-orioles","tag-pirates","tag-rookie-of-the-year-award","tag-samuel-basallo","tag-tatsuya-imai","tag-toronto-blue-jays","tag-trey-yesavage"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115874574332057110","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}