Austin Wells should be AL Rookie of the Year
09/14/2024 06:00 PM
From a platoon option to a top-five catcher in the game, Wells should take home the hardware.
The Yankees and Red Sox are in the midst of their last series of the season together, and one of the marquee attractions is the two rookies who will both receive awards consideration come November. Wilyer Abreu is an excellent defender, worth +5 Outs Above Average and +10 Defensive Runs saved, and has paired that with a strong .818 OPS. Mason Miller out in Oakland has set fire to radar guns, Colton Cowser is a key part of a playoff team in Baltimore, and even Luis Gil has dragged himself back into the Rookie of the Year conversation.
And I don't care about any of them!
The second half of the season has convinced me that Austin Wells isn't just Rookie of the Year, but arguably the best catcher in the American League. Among AL rookies, Wells is tied atop the fWAR leaderboard at 3.6 with Cowser, despite the two being virtually identical offensive contributors and Colton being spotted 150 more plate appearances. Awards should never be just the WAR contest, but Wells' value despite falling far behind the field in playing time is best highlighted by the metric.
Since June 1, when Wells really started to step out of the platoon work with Jose Trevino, no other rookie in the league is within a full win of Austin, and none of them of course are catchers. The WAR is the headline, but I think the difficulty of the position is the story.
There were always questions about whether Austin Wells would stick behind the plate at all. The bat was the compelling factor in selecting him out of Arizona back in 2020, and until this season there were plenty of arguments for him to be a part-time catcher at best. All he's done this year is be the second-best framer in the league, provide positive value in blocking, and manage to call a staff that could be best described as rather fluid.
While he doesn't typically catch Gerrit Cole — the ace has been pretty notorious for wanting to work with a specific receiver on every team he's played for — compare the pitching styles of Luis Gil to Marcus Stroman, or the challenge of receiving Tommy Kahnle's changeup against Clay Holmes' sinker.
Per Statcast, Stroman has thrown seven different types of pitches this year, with half of them either sinkers down on righties or cutters in on lefties. Gil throws one of the hardest four-seamers in the game — almost seven miles per hour harder than Stro. He adds in a changeup and slider depending on what side of the plate he wants to work on. Stroman hangs out in the strike zone trying to induce the right kind of contact, and Gil wipes batters out as long as his pitches can look like strikes.
For Wells to be the undisputed starting catcher with a pitching staff that offers the diversity of repertoire and philosophy the Yankees do, you'd take a 90-95 wRC+ bat from him, which is about where the average catcher in baseball hits. Instead, he's running at 120 entering play Friday night, and a hilarious 146 wRC+ in the second half.
We all remember Gary Sánchez's 2016 tour de force, the 20 home runs in 53 games and a second-place finish in RoY voting behind Michael Fulmer. Those 53 games were held against Gary, most voters felt like that just wasn't enough time in the majors compared to a pitcher that threw 159 innings. Wells has already played twice as many games as Gary did that season, and will hit around 120 this year. 75 percent of the season is enough for me, when he's outclassing the rest of the rookie field. We were robbed of a chance to have the AL MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same player in 2017, but in 2024, we should have those awards at least going to teammates.
