As you will see across baseball, the voting for the AL Rookie of the Year Award is going to be across the board.  Many will want to reward a player putting together almost a full year while others want to reward a players who got called up and was insanely hot for a short stretch of time.  There is room for both types of players on the ballot, and as you will see in my ballot, the player that did both, should win the Rookie of the Year Award:

1st – Michael Fulmer

Other than Corey Seager, Fulmer was the most impressive rookie in baseball this season.  Consider that if not for a long rain delay, Fulmer would have pitched enough innings to qualify to have the best ERA in the American League.  Overall, on the season, Fulmer was 11-7 with a 3.03 ERA, 1.119 WHIP, and a 7.5 K/9. He was also one of 14 pitchers in the American League who would throw a complete game shut out.

When Fulmer was first called up by the Tigers, he was only supposed to be the rotation for a short duration due to the Shane Greene injury.  Fulmer laid those plans to rest by putting together the best rookie season out of any pitcher in baseball this year.

If you are more interested in short bursts of greatness over longer periods of work where a player’s performance is permitted to ebb and flow consider that Fulmer was 3-1 with a 0.61 ERA and a 0.910 WHIP in five June starts.  Consider that in a stretch from June 1st to August 14th, Fulmer made 13 starts going 6-2 with a 1.57 ERA and a 0.872 WHIP while averaging 6.2 innings per start.  No rookie in the American League put up a two and a half month stretch that can compare to the run Fulmer went on over the summer.

That run was also part of the season for Fulmer falling off.  As he far exceeded his innings limits for a team in the middle of the Wild Card race, his performance would noticeably suffer.  However, that’s part of the reason why Fulmer is the Rookie of the Year.  He was put in position to have a long run of success while also having to deal with being put in a position to fail.  Ultimately, as Fulmer had the most dominant stretch of any American League rookie while also having a successful season stretching from April to September, he is the Rookie of the Year.

2nd – Nomar Mazara

Mazara was called up to the majors earlier than he was ready due to an injury to Shin-Soo Choo.  Despite Mazara not being ready, he would jump right out of the gate winning the AL Rookie of the Month Award for April and May.  In fact, if you took a straw poll around the All Star Break over who was the Rookie of the Year, Mazara would have won it hands down. 

In that April and May stretch, Mazara hit .302/.348/.479 with three doubles, nine homers, and 24 RBI while being the Rangers everyday right fielder.  Mazara played an above averaged right field too with a 5.3 UZR.  Yes, Mazara would regress just as any other 21 year old rookie not quite ready for the majors would.  Mazara finished the season hitting a respectable .266/.320/.419 with 13 doubles, three triples, 20 homers, and 64 RBI.  Mazara would be only one of two rookies, Cheslor Cuthbert being the other, that had enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title.

Among rookies, Mazara had the most at-bats, runs, hits, and RBI.  He is tied for first in homers.  When you lead all rookies in these categories while playing well defensively, all for a first place team, you are among the top rookies in the sport, and you should be considered the top rookie among position players.

3rd – Gary Sanchez

In August and September, there has been no player, rookie or otherwise, discussed than Sanchez.  After the Yankees decided to sell by trading away Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, and Carlos Beltran, Sanchez was among the rookies called-up by the Yankees to see which ones were ready to contribute next year to a rebuilding ball club.  Sanchez came out and immediately announced he was ready to contribute.

In 51 games, Sanchez has hit .299/.372/.650 with 12 doubles, 20 homers and 42 RBI.  Naturally, he leads all major leagues in homers during that stretch, and he’s tied with Mazara for the most amount of homers by a rookie.  If you extrapolate those numbers over the course of a full 162 game season, Sanchez would finish the year with 37 doubles, 62 homers, and 131 RBI.  After a full season like that, the Yankees would probably be best advised to just give him a monument and retire his number 57.  You get numbers from a catcher like this, especially one with a cannon behind the plate, you are talking about a top five regular season in major league history.

But that’s part of the issue.  Sanchez hasn’t played a full season.  He’s played just two months.  They’ve been two awesome months, but it’s still only about one-third of a full season.  As we have seen with Fulmer and Mazara, a rookie who has a bright major league career ahead of them can have an incredible run for two months.  Because Sanchez only played one-third of a season, we didn’t get the opportunity to see the league adjust to him and see if he could respond.  While Sanchez’s rookie year was definitely the best, the brevity of his season coupled with how others have dominated in similar stretches that he did bumps him down to third on my ballot.