Good morning, Camden Chatters.
You know, there have been many fascinating, unsolved mysteries over the course of human history. Who was D.B. Cooper? What happened to Amelia Earhart? What became of the lost colony of Roanoke?
But none of those conundrums hold a candle to perhaps the most mystifying puzzler of all time: how the heck did Dylan Beavers get a fifth-place vote for AL Rookie of the Year?
The ROY results were announced yesterday, with the Tigers’ Kevin McGonigle handily taking home the AL award
in near-unanimous fashion (and the Reds’ Sal Stewart winning the NL prize). No surprise there. But take a look at the full list of AL vote-getters and there, tied for 12th place, you’ll find the Orioles’ outfielder, thanks to a single fifth-place vote Beavers received from one of the 30 voters, Andrew Destin of The Associated Press.
First of all: good for Dylan, I guess! When you look at his Baseball Reference page from now on, it will forever list “ROY – 12” in the Awards section of his 2026 stat line. You can’t take that away from him.
But as much as I want Beavers to emerge as a quality player for the Orioles, his rookie season was, uh, not the fifth best in the AL. It wasn’t the 12th best in the AL. It unfortunately wasn’t very good at all. He hit nine homers and posted a .680 OPS, he missed a lot of time with injury, and combined with his very shaky defense, he graded as a negative-WAR player by both Baseball Reference (-0.5) and FanGraphs (-0.2).
If you go by FanGraphs WAR, Beavers ranked as only the 55th best rookie in the AL. Fifty-fifth! He’s behind such luminaries as Denzer Guzman, Yohendrick Pinango, Sam Aldegheri, and Ethan Pecko. He’s tied with Trey Gibson! And Beavers was only the fourth best rookie on his own team, behind Samuel Basallo (0.6 WAR), Anthony Nunez (0.6), and Alex Hoppe (0.3).
As far as I can tell, Destin — currently the Seattle Seahawks beat reporter for The Athletic — hasn’t written anything explaining his Rookie of the Year ballot. I will grant that voting for these kinds of awards is a tough job. Most of these writers follow only one team closely throughout the season, so it can be difficult to rank players throughout the league that you’ve seen very little of. Still, I’d be curious to find out how Destin landed on Beavers as his fifth pick.
Anyway, none of this is meant to cast Dylan Beavers as a worthless player. Again, I hope for nothing but the best for his future MLB career, and it would certainly help the Orioles a lot if he can develop as a capable corner outfielder and a lineup fixture. But I think Dylan himself would be the first to tell you that his rookie season didn’t turn out the way he planned. For one voter, though, it was good enough.
Links
Ripken on Alonso: “It was a fun year to get to know him, but even more fun to watch him” – School of Roch
Cal Ripken is a big fan of Pete Alonso. Join the club, Cal.
Does Jeremiah Jackson have a future with the Orioles? MAILBAG – BaltimoreBaseball.com
One e-mailer says of Jeremiah Jackson, who batted .217 — second-worst on the team — that “I honestly believe he was only behind Pete Alonso as the MVP of the team in batting average.” I don’t know what alternate reality some Orioles fans are living in.
Three very different seasons for Gunnar Henderson since 2024 – Steve Melewski
New Orioles GM Jared Banner is convinced the Orioles can turn Gunnar Henderson into the AL MVP and a World Series champion. If Banner pulls that off, go ahead and name him Executive of the Year.
Orioles birthdays and history
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! I regret to inform you that there isn’t a single player in Orioles history who was born on Nov. 10. The best I can offer you is Eric Thames, who played 41 games in the O’s minor league system in 2013 but didn’t get a call-up. Thames played six years in the majors with four other teams.
On this date in 2015, Orioles third baseman Manny Machado won his second career Gold Glove in just his third full major league season. Quick trivia question: how many more Gold Gloves has Machado won in the 11 years since? The answer, shockingly, is zero. Even though he’s remained an elite defender for much of his career, he’s perpetually been outshined by someone else. He was one of the three finalists for the AL Gold Glove at third base in 2016 and 2017, but was beaten out by Adrian Beltré and Evan Longoria, respectively, and was an NL Gold Glove finalist for the Padres in 2020 and 2021 but was edged out by Nolan Arenado both times.
