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

So far, Yankees third baseman Miguel Andujar has had a tremendous rookie season. Some analysts believe Angels pitcher and designated hitter Shohei Ohtani deserves the American League Rookie of the Year award. Here are three reasons why Andujar, and NOT Ohtani, deserves the honor.

Miguel Andujar started his 2018 season in the minors, but now he bats in the heart of the AL Wild Card-leading New York Yankees lineup. He earned his promotions by remaining consistent and healthy all year long. Now MLB fans are beginning to recognize him as a household name. Other fans and analysts like me believe either him or Gleyber Torres will win the AL Rookie of the Year, but there’s another name in the hat.

Unfortunately, Andujar’s breakout campaign occurred during a year where Japanese baseball “phenom” Shohei Ohtani arrived in the MLB. Over the last couple of years, sports reporters have anointed Ohtani as the greatest thing since sliced bread. So one could think the AL Rookie of the Year award was practically his before he stepped on an MLB field.

The coverage of the Ohtani sweepstakes last year made the then 23-year-old Japanese ballplayer appear to be a rock star. Major League Baseball’s love for nostalgia also elevated Ohtani to superstardom status as he was commonly referred to as “The Babe Ruth of Japan.”

Expectations were high for Ohtani because of his outstanding success as a pitcher and a hitter in Japan’s professional baseball league. However, one can argue that his injury-plagued season and his inability to play every day for the Los Angeles Angels should prevent Ohtani from winning the AL ROY.

As for Miguel Andujar, entering 2018, he had to earn his spot on the Yankees roster. Brandon Drury was expected to be the Yankees starting third baseman in 2018. But injuries forced Drury out, and Andujar in. Since then, Miggy has out hit every Yankees player, with a .298 batting average.

Despite his over-achieving performance, some of the sports media industry’s most prominent contributors will not stop drinking the Ohtani Kool-Aid. Let’s take Fancred Sportswriter and MLB Insider Jon Heyman for example:

A day later, Heyman tweeted out that he found a few who agree with him, “but not many.” Sports Illustrated staff writer Emma Baccellieri also sided with Heyman’s opinion. In her article, she explained why she believes that no matter what the future holds for Ohtani’s injured arm, he should still win the honor.

I respectfully disagree with these journalists, and I’ve provided three reasons why Miguel Andujar should win the AL ROY award.

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.