{"id":608745,"date":"2026-03-06T00:33:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T00:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/608745\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T00:33:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T00:33:22","slug":"top-15-rookies-for-the-2026-mlb-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/608745\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 15 rookies for the 2026 MLB season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Mets have two big Rookie of the Year candidates in a stacked field. That\u2019s a testament to a productive system.<\/p>\n<p>Here are 15 of baseball\u2019s top rookies\/future stars.<\/p>\n<p>1. Nolan McLean, Mets SP<\/p>\n<p>How is this guy still a rookie after his two-WAR, 2.06 ERA campaign? Well, you need fewer than 45 days and 50 innings, and McLean had 44 days and 48 innings.<\/p>\n<p>Not only does <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/03\/03\/sports\/nolan-mclean-bestowed-with-potential-massive-team-usa-honor\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Team USA\u2019s scheduled final game starter<\/a> have top-tier talent, his attitude\u2019s perfect. After he agreed at $791,500, which is maybe 2 or 3 percent his actual value, he told The Post, \u201cI\u2019m just happy to be here.\u201d About being Team USA\u2019s final game starter, he said, \u201cWe have to get there first!\u201d Perfect!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mets have two big Rookie of the Year candidates in a stacked field. That\u2019s a testament to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2396],"tags":[5,5805,101,4,1690,61,2548,4203,2517,185,430,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-608745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-mets","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-carson-benge","10":"tag-mets","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-mets","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkmets","16":"tag-nolan-mclean","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-sports-columnists","19":"tag-sports-plus"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116179422734019653","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608745","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=608745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}