{"id":849935,"date":"2026-11-10T07:33:50","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T07:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/849935\/"},"modified":"2026-11-10T07:33:50","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T07:33:50","slug":"sal-stewart-named-national-league-rookie-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/849935\/","title":{"rendered":"Sal Stewart named National League Rookie of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">In 2024, when Paul Skenes won National League Rookie of the Year, Jackson Chourio finished as one of the NL\u2019s three finalists. In 2025, Caleb Durbin made it back-to-back years with a Brewers finalist as Drake Baldwin took home the award.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">This year, despite a trio of talented rookies in Logan Henderson, Cooper Pratt, and Luis Lara, all of whom contributed to the Brewers\u2019 title run, Milwaukee was shut out. The finalists in the National League were Cardinals second baseman J.J. Wetherholt, Mets right fielder Carson Benge, and the winner: first baseman Sal Stewart of the Reds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Henderson did <a href=\"https:\/\/bbwaa.com\/26-nl-roy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pick up some down-ballot votes<\/a>, receiving one second-place vote, one third-place vote, and three fifth-place votes. The right-hander put up 3.3 bWAR (1.3 more than Stewart) and went the whole regular season without allowing more than three runs in a start.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Stewart, who received 20 first-place votes and 170 total points, is an old-school pick whose power is his calling card; despite posting just 2.0 bWAR, he finished eighth in the NL with 32 home runs and second with 112 RBIs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Finishing in second place with 107 points was Benge, who doesn\u2019t lead the way in any one statistical category: he\u2019s just good at everything. He\u2019s an above-average hitter (118 OPS+) and an above-average defender (+1 DRS), he posted a 20\/20 season, and he got better as the year went on. Benge\u2019s standout tool is his arm; he finished the season with 10 outfield assists, including one on August 17 that was thrown at 103.9 mph.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Wetherholt, who finished third with 99 points, is already one of the best defensive players in the league; he led all NL rookies with 4.6 bWAR despite hitting at a roughly league-average level (.704 OPS, 102 OPS+). His +25 outs above average and +23 fielding run value both ranked second in the majors, behind only Pete Crow-Armstrong.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">In the AL, Kevin McGonigle ran away with the award, receiving 28 of 30 first-place votes. In his first season as a big-leaguer, McGonigle led the entire American League with 7.1 bWAR, a ridiculous number that shows just how bright his future is.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Full voting results are available from the BBWAA for the <a href=\"https:\/\/bbwaa.com\/26-nl-roy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NL<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/bbwaa.com\/26-al-roy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AL<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2024, when Paul Skenes won National League Rookie of the Year, Jackson Chourio finished as one of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2401],"tags":[5,136,843,59,4514,4280,4],"class_list":["post-849935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-milwaukee-brewers","tag-baseball","tag-brewers","tag-milwaukee","tag-milwaukee-brewers","tag-milwaukee-brewers-news","tag-milwaukeebrewers","tag-mlb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117590993366863897","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849935","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=849935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}