Kyle Lewis, Seattle Mariners.
Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle Mariners, 2001 AL Rookie of the Year. (photo by Russ Walker, via Flickr)
It was 2001 when the Seattle Mariners last had a Rookie of the Year winner. Amidst that magical season, Ichiro walked away with it, as well as the American League MVP Award. While this season hasn’t gone as magically for the M’s, the growth of their young nucleus has been incredible. The biggest story of 2020 has been the rise of Kyle Lewis.
The physically imposing Lewis (6-4, 205-pounds) broke onto the scene with three home runs in his first three games last September. In 2020, he has come into his own. However, is his breakout season enough to secure a major award?
On a regular Saturday with no doubleheaders, around 45 hours of baseball is played. Since members of the Baseball Writers Association of America vote for the awards, players need to catch their attention. Those in the limelight get more of their plays seen. So when players from major market teams, Luis Robert of the Chicago White Sox and Jo Adell of the Los Angeles Angels, came in as the top-rated prospects to move up to MLB this year, the Rookie of the Year Award seemed destined for one of them.
Amidst those preseason ranking lists of top 100 prospects, Lewis didn’t make the cut. In fact, the Mariners currently have three outfielders who made the Top-100 among every major list out there. Jarred Kelenic, Julio Rodriguez, and the newly acquired Taylor Trammell have all drawn praise. Lewis, to his credit, shows up and produces. Maybe the only person touting Lewis for ROY before the season started was our Ed Stein. Back on July 18, he wrote about Lewis’ betting odds to win the award.
“Curiously, Kyle Lewis doesn’t appear on many (futures) boards. If you can find him, he’s 50/1. That’s a value pick after his impressive 2019 September run.”
Lewis carried an over .400 batting average through his first ten games. With 17 hits and three home runs in those games, he announced his arrival in the ROY race. Just as he did with the knee injury that threatened to steal his career, when challenges come up, Lewis finds another gear to rise to the challenge.
Kyle Lewis, Seattle Mariners.
As the 2020 season chugged along, ebbs and flows saw the numbers of every player fluctuate. Due to the shortened 60-game season, a bad week puts a big dent in any player’s numbers. Over 100 years of Major League history says an early batting average of .400 would never last. Lewis enters Tuesday’s game with Oakland hitting .278.
While Adell never clicked, Luis Robert has been magnificent. One impressive number that concerns him and has all of baseball’s attention is 34-20. As in, the Chicago White Sox have won 34 of their 54 games so far. That puts the ChiSox just two games behind Tampa for the best regular-season record in the AL.
With all of the extra attention on a team in the nation’s third-largest media market, Robert’s 11 home runs certainly have more eyes on them than Lewis’ 11. Robert holds the lead in stolen bases and RBIs. However, RBIs are often a product of being on a good team as much as they are from individual merit. Chicago’s rookie slugger is surrounded by much more talent than Lewis is.
Robert might get the hype, but Lewis has put up some impressive numbers of his own. He currently leads all MLB rookies in runs, hits, home runs (tied with Robert), and walks. Additionally, Lewis is second only to Jake Cronenworth of the NL’s San Diego Padres in batting average, OBP, and OPS. As the season wore on, pitchers changed their approach to the Seattle Mariners rookie center fielder, he made adjustments and rose to that challenge as well.
There are a few other numbers to consider when comparing Luis Robert and Kyle Lewis. The Chicago slugger is batting a mere .230 and has 50 percent more strikeouts than hits, 65-42. Also, in the Holy Grail of Sabermetrics, Lewis Holds a 1.8-1.7 advantage in Wins Above Replacement (WAR).
Kyle Lewis, Seattle Mariners.
Numbers are meaningless outside of context. Players like Robert match numbers with his electric play on the field. Among his gems of the year, Robert put Lewis on notice with a walk-off three-run home run in the 10th inning against the Royals on August 30. The next day, he tied a game against Minnesota with a seventh-inning home run and won it with an RBI double in the 9th.
The strength of Robert is not his great numbers as a rookie. Rather it’s his ability to change games at their biggest moments. All season, clutch hitting kept him right in the thick of things.
One of the intangible qualities Kyle Lewis has is the ability to find another gear. It relies on how a game plays out. When opportunities present themselves, the greats take advantage.
So amidst a smoky backdrop on September 14, Lewis had one of those prime opportunities. In the first game of a doubleheader, he hit a two-run homer that sparked a late comeback, which he finished with a bases-loaded walk for the game-winning RBI. In the first inning of the next game, Ramon Laureano hit a two-out grand slam to give the Oakland Athletics a 5-0 lead. Well, almost.
Unfortunately for Laureano, Lewis found that next gear. Leaping against the wall was the final stamp of approval on his Rookie of the Year case. Before the smoke cleared, Lewis danced in the outfield, celebrating a Griffey-esque robbery.
Assuming the voters have been paying attention, whatever happens over the final six games of the regular season should be nothing more than a victory lap for Kyle Lewis’s Rookie of the Year campaign. The kid from Snellville, Georgia, who went to college at Mercer, has overcome every obstacle. He checked every box and should be the 2020 winner. That is, unless a surprise pitcher, Justus Sheffield, who has been red hot since August 9, sneaks in as a candidate with a big final performance.
It’s an exciting time to be a Mariners fan.
Do you believe Kyle Lewis is the 2020 American League Rookie of the Year? Let us know in the comments section below or on social media.