Reviewing the last half-decade of Dodgers Rookie of the Year hopefuls

This afternoon, former-Dodgers prospect Yordan Alvarez will likely be handed an AL Rookie of the Year award for his season with the Houston Astros.

While ultimately no Dodgers rookies were named finalists this season, the team does have a recent track record of successfully pumping out solid rookies, chiefly under the Guggenheim regime.

This season, Alex Verdugo and Will Smith proved the two most valuable rookies for the Dodgers, and even though both had relatively limited stints with the big league club, the pair combined to be worth 3.9 WAR in 2019.

At 23 years old, Verdugo’s highly-anticipated rookie campaign saw him beat out established veterans for playing time in a crowded outfield thanks to both his defense and on-base skills. The young left-handed hitter hit 12 home runs with a .294 AVG and 4 steals in 2019 in just 377 plate appearances thanks to injury. If he could have reached the 20-homer and 10-steal plateaus while still hitting .294, he may have had a legitimate shot at being named a finalist thanks to his solid defensive contributions.

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Will Smith dominated at times as a 24-year-old rookie last season. His cemented status as the team’s starting catcher make it feel like he played longer, but really, Smith only played for the Dodgers in 54 games. He failed to see 200 plate appearances. If he had gotten the chance to play 100 games or more like Verdugo, he may have had a shot at being a finalist as well, especially because of how rare it is to find a good hitting catcher in 2019. Despite his ups and downs,

The real success in young players comes between 2016 and 2018, though one could argue that the future still is bright for the Dodgers young players. Over the past four seasons, the Dodgers had had a National League Rookie of the Year finalist in each of them before this one. Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger went back-to-back in 2016 and 2017 and Walker Buehler finished third to Ronald Acuña Jr. and Juan Soto in 2018.

In his Rookie of the Year campaign, the Dodgers young shortstop Seager played in 157 games with a triple-slash line of .308/.365/.512 and 26 home runs, numbers he really hasn’t found a way to match since that season. He played solid defense as well, but ultimately, he beat out Trevor Story and Trea Turner because they played far fewer games with (some could argue) less all-around success.

Bellinger’s 2017 was much more of a runaway race. He won 100% of the first-place votes over competitors like the Cardinals’ shortstop Paul DeJong and first basemen Josh Bell (Pirates) and Rhys Hoskins (Phillies). Bellibomb took over for Adrian Gonzalez in a big way, with 39 home runs and 10 steals in 132 games to go along with a monstrous triple-slash line of .267/.352/.581. While his 2018 season saw a sophomore slump, he obviously turned it on in 2019, as he’s in the running for the NL MVP in just his third full season in the big leagues.

In the next few years, the Dodgers will likely have Gavin Lux in the running for a Rookie of the Year award, but beyond the middle infielder, the farm system’s best prospects have almost all graduated over the last few years.