Yankees: 3 reasons why Miguel Andujar, not Shohei Ohtani, should win AL ROY

Andujar has out-hit the Yankees historic Opening Day lineup

The 2018 New York Yankees were expected, by some, to break the 1997 Seattle Mariners single-season team home run record (264). After leading the majors with 241 home runs in 2017, the Yankees added the 2017 NL MVP and NL home run king, Giancarlo Stanton.

The surprising addition of Stanton made the Yankees lineup appear to be unstoppable. Their rookie phenom Aaron Judge hit 52 home runs, and now they added Stanton’s 59 dingers. Judge, Stanton, and the mighty Gary Sanchez were the three-headed monster destined to give opposing pitchers nightmares.

Along with those three goliaths, veterans Didi Gregorius, Aaron Hicks, and Brett Gardner all emerged as 20-plus home run power threats in 2017. A healthy Greg Bird was also supposed to provide some serious pop from the right side of the plate, and Tyler Austin was supposed to platoon with Bird against lefty-pitchers because of his powerful swing against southpaws.

Besides Stanton, another new addition to the Yankees lineup was former Silver Slugger recipient, infielder Neil Walker. Lastly, off-season acquisition third baseman Brandon Drury was reported to be on the Yankees radar for a while, and some of their analysts thought he had the potential to belt 30 home runs someday.

Here was the official starting lineup for the New York Yankees back on March 28:

1. Brett Gardner, LF
2. Aaron Judge, RF
3. Giancarlo Stanton, DH
4. Gary Sanchez, C
5. Aaron Hicks, CF
6. Didi Gregorius, SS
7. Brandon Drury, 3B
8. Neil Walker, 2B
9. Tyler Austin, 1B

Luis Severino, RHP

Fast forward five and half months later, and we see that Miguel Andujar is batting in the heart of the Yankees lineup every day.

He’s batting .292 with RISP, which is second to fellow rookie Gleyber Torres (.295) on the team. He also leads the team in doubles (40) and batting average (.298). He’s second in RBI’s (79) behind Giancarlo Stanton (84), but he’s ahead of Stanton’s .504 slugging percentage with a .521 clip, and only trails behind the injured Aaron Judge (.548).

Unlike the Angels’ expectations for Shohei Ohtani to be a huge part of their offense in 2018, Andujar was not expected to be one of the leading hitters for the Yankees, but he has been. And unlike Ohtani, Andujar’s valuable bat is in their lineup every day.

Andujar’s bat is fantastic, but some analysts believe his poor fielding will cost him the Rookie of the Year. Here’s why that’s hogwash.

Andujar’s poor fielding performance hasn’t been as costly to the Yankees as you may think

Okay, we all know Miguel Andujar is not a gold glove fielder. But let me remind you, he’s 23 years old and he’s still a rookie. Most rookies go through struggles in the field, so this is nothing new. On the season, Andujar has an unacceptable 15 errors, so I understand the frustration.

On the bright side, the Yankees have a winning record of 7-6 when Andujar commits an error. Now let’s see how many of these games were crucially impacted by an Andujar error:

• 4/10 L BOS 14-1: Miguel Andujar committed a two-out error in the sixth inning when his team was already down 7-1 against the Red Sox. One run would score on that play. Six more runs would score that inning. It was a blow out before the error occurred. NOT CRUCIAL
• 7/6 L TOR 6-2: Andujar committed an error in a 5-1 game on a ground ball. No runs scored that inning, so no damage done by Andujar. NOT CRUCIAL 
• 7/10 L BAL 6-5: Andujar committed a throwing error in a 2-0 game with two outs, but no runs went on to score. NOT CRUCIAL 
• 8/5 L BOS 5-4: Andujar committed two errors in the game. The first one occurred in the fifth inning, but it led to no runs scoring. The second one happened in the bottom of the ninth when the Yankees were leading 4-3 with two outs. It was a short throw to Greg Bird (who should have caught the ball), and it led to the Red Sox tieing the game. The Red Sox would win the next inning. CRUCIAL 
• 8/16 L TB 3-1: With no out, and the Yankees down 2-0, Andujar mad a throwing error on a sacrifice bunt. Another run would later score. Because this game was within reach, I would consider this CRUCIAL
• 9/3 L OAK 6-3: With the Yankees down 2-1 in the bottom of the first, Andujar mad a two-out error that led to another run-scoring. Since this occurred while the game was within reach and early on, I would consider it CRUCIAL.

While Andujar has committed 15 errors on the year, only three of them have occurred in a crucial situation that aided to a Yankees loss. Only one of them really cost them a game.

As for Shohei Ohtani, he doesn’t play the field. So he can’t contribute to registering outs in games where is also hitting. But he’s started an incredible (sarcasm intended) ten games, so that should negate the fact that he doesn’t play the field, right? Absolutely not!

Shohei Ohtani, the pitcher, has been an inconvenience to the Angels

Not only has he started just ten games, but he doesn’t pitch every fifth game as a regular starting pitcher does – that’s an inconvenience to a pitching staff! And in his ten starts, he has two losses, only two wins, and he’s averaging about five innings an outing. How extraordinary are you if you average five innings a start?

On three occasions, Ohtani has failed to pitch into the fifth inning. If you’re a starting pitcher and you fail to make it into the fifth inning, you didn’t do your job. And if you didn’t do your job, that means you messed up, or you made an ERROR! Some of you may say, “But Chris, he was hurt,” to which I respond – yeah that furthers my point about him being an inconvenience.

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Yes, Andujar’s poor fielding has been a bit of an inconvenience at times for the Yankees. But what we can’t do is ignore the fact that Ohtani has also been a huge inconvenience to the Los Angeles Angels.

I’m not sorry when I say that I’m not impressed by Ohtani the starting pitcher. I’m not handing him the rookie of the year because five of his ten starts have been quality starts and he hits the ball very well as a DH.

Ohtani has had his moments of being dominant on the mound, and he is an outstanding hitter. But I think analysts like Heyman are giving Ohtani way too much credit for what he has done for the entire year.

As a starting pitcher for the season, Ohtani should be given an incomplete grade. As a hitter, it would be an A if he had more than half a season under his belt at this point in the season. Ohtani’s hit in 83 games and Andujar’s hit in 129 while fielding most of the time. Which of the two sounds more impressive.

Please, to Heyman and everyone else in love with the Shohei Ohtani experience, don’t rob Andujar of an award he truly deserves. It would be an embarrassment to our game because when you look at his numbers there’s not a more deserving player out there.