Last season the computer combined with some organizational context made the following projections for ROY:

AL

1. OF Corbin Carrol Ari – Fajita Eaters
2. SP Hunter Brown Hou – The Big Units
3. OF Garrett Mitchell Mil – Baby Seals

With honorable mentions to: Sal Frelick, Curtis Mead, Brett Baty, Royce Lewis, David Hensley, Otto Lopez, Josh Jung, Will Brennan, Taj Bradley, Bobby Miller, Sam Bachman, D.L. Hall, Luis Medina, Cody Morris, Brandon Walter, Forrest Whitley and Ryne Nelson.

Actual results:

1. OF Corbin Carroll Ari – Fajita Eaters
2. SP Kodai Senga NyM – Fajita Eaters
3. SP Bobby Miller LaD – Baby Seals
4. SP Tanner Bibee Cle – Tom Cat’s
5. SS Elly De La Cruz Cin – Fajita Eaters
6. SP Bryce Miller Sea – BROB’s Barnacles
7. SP Hunter Brown Hou – The Big Units
8. SS Royce Lewis Min – BROB’s Barnacles

NL

1. SS Gunnar Henderson Bal – Pro Bowlers
2. OF Esteury Ruiz Oak – Ball Busters
3. SS Anthony Volpe NyY – Baby Seals

With honorable mentions to: Ji-Hwan Bae, Brayan Rocchio, Brice Turang, Francisco Alvarez, Alec Burleson, Xavier Edwards, Tristan Casas, Sixto Sanchez, Luis Gil, Max Meyer, Bryan Mata, Cade Cavalli, Eury Perez, Grayson Rodriguez, Kyle Muller, Ken Waldichuk, Cole Henry

Actual results:

1. 1B Spencer Steer Cin – Ball Busters
2. SS Gunnar Henderson Bal – Pro Bowlers
3. 1B Triston Casas Bos – Ball Busters
4. OF Masataka Yoshida Bos – Rollin’ Goats
5. OF James Outman LaD – Rollin’ Goats
6. C Francisco Alvarez NyM – Nellemaniacs
7. C Yainer Diaz Hou – Nellemaniacs
8. 2B Edouard Julien Min – Kelly’s Heroes
9. SS Anthony Volpe NyY – Ball Busters

For both the AL and the NL, 2 of the projected 3 finished in the top 9, while an additional 2 honorable mentions also garnered votes. Uncanny. I got to say though, only hitting on half of the ROY candidates doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment. I’m gonna break them down a bit here and see where I went wrong.

AL Breakdown

1. OF Corbin Carrol Ari – Fajita Eaters: Nothing to see here folks. The obvious candidate at the beginning of the year followed through on his promise. And now Ben isn’t allowed to bitch about his under performing rookies for at least 5 years.
2. SP Kodai Senga NyM – Fajita Eaters: A very obvious omission here. My computer only is able to evaluate players with scouting grades from specific sources or MLB stats. Senga had neither coming into 2023, so he slipped right through the cracks. Shota and Yamamoto will probably suffer similar results this year, so I will just have to manually slot them in where I think they make the most sense.
3. SP Bobby Miller LaD – Baby Seals: Originally projected as the #2 rookie SP, he ended up not making my contextualized top 3, and was therefore an honorable mention, as I perceived his situation in LaD to be too competitive for him to see the needed volume to make a run at ROY. This was in the same breath as highlighting that rookie SP’s may have higher floors because they only need one of five pitchers on a team to go down for any length of time to have a shot at making their debut. Perhaps this year I will listen to my own advice.
4. SP Tanner Bibee Cle – Tom Cat’s
5. SS Elly De La Cruz Cin – Fajitea Eaters
6. SP Bryce Miller Sea – BROB’s Barnacles
   
   All three of these players fall into the same general category as none of them made the original article and all three graduated to the pros at least a year ahead what the computer projected.

Bibee and Miller both seemed like reasonable candidates to be delayed a year. Perhaps Miller less so as he was getting to that age where the Mariners wanted to see what they had. Still, both had less than 75 IP above A+ going into 2023, and projecting them both to start at AA, followed by a quick projection to AAA and a cup of coffee at the end of the season seemed reasonable. Clearly that didn’t happen. The first time the Guardians had 6 consecutive days with a game they called up Bibee and shifted to a 6 man rotation. A couple weeks later Miller gets an opportunity when Robbie Ray goes down and never looked back. In both cases their respective teams bypassed their org depth and went to a higher ceiling, but maybe less polished young arm. A good sign for the excitement of baseball, but a tough thing for the computer to come to terms with.

Elly had a whopping 393 ABs above A+ before making his major league debut in early June and lighting the world on fire. The exact context of his call up escapes me, but undoubtedly it had something to do with demolishing AA and AAA in a couple hundred ABs and proving the minors had nothing left to teach him. The end of his 2023 season ended in a simmer rather than a boil, but the excitement he brought onto the field is undeniable.

7. SP Hunter Brown Hou – The Big Units: Originally projected as the #2 AL prospect in 2023, Hunter’s surface level numbers disappointed, especially his ERA. However, when looking at rookie’s with a minimum of 100 IP, Brown finished 3rd in K/9 (behind Senga and Taj), 1st in xFIP (11th in ERA) and 1st in HR/FB% (21%, the bad 1st). In the 2021 and 2022 minor league seasons Brown had a HR/FB rate of 14.4% (MLB average 12.7%). It might be fair to say that Brown is more HR prone than the average pitcher, but 21% still seems like a uniquely unsustainable number. In fact out of all MLB pitchers with at least 100 IP, Brown was 2nd behind only David Peterson. Again, the bad 2nd. As a result, I’m going to chock Brown’s low ROY standing up to more bad luck and being drowned out by exciting and unexpected prospects more so than him actually underachieving. But maybe I’m rationalizing too hard here.

8. SS Royce Lewis Min – BROB’s Barnacles: In my original article I mentioned how it was difficult to rank Royce due to his injury history. I can’t determine exactly how many games he spent on the IL, but can say he did not play in a game until 5/11 and only got into 72 games last season between AA, AAA and MLB level ball. So, probably fair to say he missed some time. With all that being said, I’ll take this output as a win for the computers projections.

NL Breakdown

1. 1B Spencer Steer Cin – Ball Busters: Spencer was on the list of graduated prospects, but was projected to be the 29th overall rookie hitter, so naturally, he didn’t get much consideration in the original article. Looking at his prospect grades (50 H, 50 P, 50 S), I would not personally have guessed he would but up a 118 wrc+, but here we are. I don’t have any concerns with this omission despite the fact that Steer came away as the top vote getter, because I believe he significantly exceeded expectations. Good on you Eric.
2. SS Gunnar Henderson Bal – Pro Bowlers: The projected winner still came in at #2 and had a season that seems to have followed through on his promise. At least for now. No notes for me on this one. The system works.
3. 1B Triston Casas Bos – Ball Busters: Originally I downplayed Casas’ chances at ROY due to perceived playing time limitations on the Ball Busters. His eventual success despite the competition of fellow rookie Spencer Steer, as well as Kirilloff, Mountcastle and LaMonte Wade Jr., is a testament to how determined Ball Busters was to fit Casas in his lineup. While he finished just outside of the playoffs in ’23, his army of 1B eligible youngsters will certainly be a benefit in ’24.
4. OF Masataka Yoshida Bos – Rollin’ Goats: Same problem as Kodai earlier. Note to self: squeeze in those ready to play IFAs.
5. OF James Outman LaD – Rollin’ Goats: Similar to Spencer Steer, Outman was projected as the 23rd best hitting rookie. Interestingly, Mr. Computer projected Outman as a .250/.300/.450 rookie year line. His actual line of .248/.353/.437 isn’t that far off. Clearly he walked more than the comp thought he would, but the real difference maker was his playing time. His modest hit tool and competitive playing landscape did not lend itself to a large amount of rookie PAs, but for reasons I’m just not willing to research, Outman clearly outstripped that number. Props to him. Lesson to learn here? Eh, a miss is a miss.
6. C Francisco Alvarez NyM – Nellemaniacs: Listed in the honorable mentions, Alvarez was an obvious candidate to graduate last season, on a team desperate for some offensive and little to no competition at catcher. Sure as shootin’, Alvarez got plenty of playing time on the Mets and the Nellemaniacs. Calling this one a success.
7. C Yainer Diaz Hou – Nellemaniacs: Just outside the top 10 rookie hitters, Diaz just wasn’t projected to make the cut. But, after a strong showing with the Astros, he proved himself a mighty fine rookie. I’ll lump Diaz in with Steer and Outman as prospects who simply weren’t projected to have exceptional rookie seasons and proved the computer wrong.
8. 2B Edouard Julien Min – Kelly’s Heroes: The first example in the NL of a player who graduated ahead of schedule. Well done Julien. The most interesting part of Julien’s ascendance was that he was not a particularly well ranked prospect compared to the likes of Elly, Bibee and Bryce Miller (all of whom were top 100 on Pipeline’s list in 2023, while Julien was not).
9. SS Anthony Volpe NyY – Ball Busters: Well, he didn’t finish third, but ninth is better than nothing? Aside from his 24 SBs, Volpe didn’t provide a whole lot of thump in his rookie season, so his low standing in the rookie vote seems deserved. The only rationalization I can throw out there is that his .259 BABIP seems awfully low for a guy who swiped 24 bags, so maybe he, like Hunter Brown, was simply unlucky and surrounded by unexpectedly solid showings.

Conclusion

Lessons learned from this retrospective include:

• International MLB caliber players should probably be included
• There’s a decent chance that at least some of the rookie’s that garner votes will be top 100 prospects who graduate ahead of schedule
• The projected top 3 and honorable mentions seems to be a decent indicator of prospects to graduate and have decent rookie seasons

That’s all for now. Keep an eye out for 2024 ROY projections coming…..soon….maybe. Time will tell.