Right now, the only real challenger to Stewart is McLean. The 25-year-old showed a ton of promise across eight starts last season and rolled that success into 2026, pitching to the tune of a 3.06 ERA and 3.60 FIP across his first 27 starts. <\/p>\n
Currently, most books have him at +500 odds, but we\u2019ll get to his path later. First, let\u2019s start with Stewart.<\/p>\n
All stats were taken prior to play on September 4th. <\/p>\n
Sal Stewart\u2019s Success <\/p>\n
When Sal Stewart debuted in 2025, you could see the potential in his bat. Although it was only 18 games, Stewart\u2019s five home runs helped prove that the power he grew into during the season in the minors (20 HR) was real. His bat was always advanced for his age, and you knew the power would eventually trend up, but at this rate has been a surprise.<\/p>\n
Coming into 2026, Stewart was seen as the offensive \u201caddition\u201d the Reds needed the most. <\/p>\n
A middle-of-the-order power bat that could add more juice to a lineup that didn\u2019t have nearly enough. Through 140 games, Stewart has slashed .266\/.336\/.485 with 31 home runs, 105 RBI, and 12 stolen bases, good for a 120 wRC+. I\u2019d say he\u2019s fit the need quite well.<\/p>\n
Now, before we dive in too deep, we must remember these awards tend to favor more \u201ctraditional\u201d stats. I typically would not make a point of highlighting a certain player\u2019s RBI total to compare him to other players, but the stat still carries weight with voters. <\/p>\n
NL Rookie RankingsHRRBIDoubles OPS Stewart 1st (31)1st (105)2nd (25)2nd (.821)<\/p>\n
Stewart is not only leading the league in home runs and RBI amongst NL Rookies, he\u2019s almost lapping the competition. His 31 home runs are 14 more than Wetherholt, who ranks second in the category. Stewart\u2019s 105 RBI is 41 more than TJ Rumfield, who is second.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Right now, the only real challenger to Stewart is McLean. The 25-year-old showed a ton of promise across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[5,535,50,4259,4,536],"class_list":["post-797365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cincinnati-reds","tag-baseball","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-cincinnatireds","tag-mlb","tag-reds"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117219093652085640","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797365","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=797365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}