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Inbox: What are Sanchez’s ROY chances?
- Updated: September 19, 2016
Will Gary Sanchez win the American League Rookie of the Year Award? Could he be eligible for it next season? — Stephen S., Port Jefferson, N.Y.
Sanchez absolutely belongs in the discussion, and that alone shows how remarkable his last seven weeks have been. He hit his 16th home run in Sunday’s 5-4 loss to the Red Sox, a laser that smashed into an advertising board over the Green Monster. This has been historic. It took Sanchez just 158 at-bats to reach 16 homers, making him the second-fastest player in history (Wally Berger did it in 148 at-bats in 1930).
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We explored Sanchez’s candidacy in more detail during the club’s recent homestand, and his .327/.393/.698 slash line through 41 games demands that voters must offer him a serious look before they cast their ballots. This is Sanchez’s only shot at the award, since he is past 130 at-bats, which exhausts a player’s rookie eligibility.
The Tigers’ Michael Fulmer seems to be Sanchez’s primary competition for the award; Fulmer is 10-7 with a 3.03 ERA, but he has been stumbling to the finish line. The right-hander is 0-4 with a 6.28 ERA in his last five starts. If you like Fangraphs WAR as a measuring stick, that metric makes a compelling case for Sanchez; his 2.7 WAR leads all AL rookie position players, though Fulmer is just behind him at 2.6 WAR.
It helps that there is some historical precedence for a player coming up so late and winning the Rookie of the Year Award; in 1959, Willie McCovey took the National League honors after hitting .354 with 13 homers, 38 RBIs and a 1.085 OPS despite playing in just 52 games. If Sanchez appears in all of the Yankees’ remaining games, he would finish with 54 games played.
The Yankees have had a lot of injured …
