If you were worried about the state of the shortstop position after Derek Jeter's retirement, worry no more. The Houston Astros' Carlos Correa and the Cleveland Indians' Francisco Lindor have got it covered.
When the Yankee captain hung up his cleats following the 2014 season, Correa and Lindor—both former first-round picks from Puerto Rico—were marinating in the minors, full of promise but yet to prove anything at the big league level.
Now, 12 months later, they've arrived—and vaulted to the front of the AL Rookie of the Year race.
Each was named a finalist for the award, which will be handed out Nov. 16. The Minnesota Twins' Miguel Sano is also in the mix, but this is a two-horse race between Correa and Lindor.
So who deserves to win?
That's not the same as asking who will win, as we'll explore in a moment. But first, let's crunch some numbers.
Correa made his MLB debut on June 8, and Lindor followed a week later on June 14. Correa got off to a scalding start, clubbing a home run in his second contest and hitting .349 through his first 10 games. Lindor, meanwhile, collected three hits in his first seven at-bats but saw his average plummet to .203 on July 5.
A strong finish left Lindor with a .313/.353/.482 slash line, which stacks up nicely next to Correa's .279/.345/.512.
Where Lindor really separates himself, however, is with the leather. His 10 defensive runs saved (DRS) and 10.5 ultimate zone rating (UZR) blow away Correa's marks of zero and minus-six respectively, per FanGraphs. And since they play the same position, the comparison is particularly instructive.
So far, all signs point to Lindor. But Correa has plenty going for him.
And by "plenty," we mean power.
In fact, only five rookie shortstops since at least 1901 have exceeded or matched Correa's total of 22 home runs, per Baseball-Reference: Nomar Garciaparra with 30 in 1997, Cal Ripken with 28 in 1982, Troy Tulowitzki with 24 in 2007, Bobby Crosby with 22 in 2004 and Ron Hansen with 22 in 1960.
Of those five, four won Rookie of the Year honors, with only Tulowitzki missing the cut (he finished a close second to Ryan Braun). So on dingers alone, history is on Correa's side. And dingers are a precious commodity in today's pitching-dominated MLB.
Then there's the fact that the Astros made the playoffs while Lindor's Indians stayed home.
Qualifying for the postseason isn't a ROY prerequisite. Both of last year's winners—Jose Abreu of the Chicago White Sox and Jacob deGrom of the New York Mets—toiled for clubs that finished out of the money.
But in a battle this evenly matched, that could be a scale-tipper. The voting members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America cast their ballots before the first postseason game, but they know who's about to step into the October spotlight.
"If the award comes, it comes," Correa said on Oct. 3, per Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle. "I think I've put up pretty good numbers to deserve it."
On the matter of who will win, the safe money's on Correa. His impressive pop coupled with Houston's surprise Wild Card berth are impossible to ignore.
But remember, the original question was who should win. And on that count, the needle keeps nudging back toward Lindor.
The glove work is the eye-opener. But Lindor also hit as many doubles as Correa (22) and legged out four triples to Correa's one. Their hitting, quite simply, wasn't far enough apart to account for the defensive disparity.
And while WAR is far from a be-all, end-all measure of value, Lindor wins there, too—4.6 to 3.3, per FanGraphs, and 4.6 to 4.1, per Baseball-Reference.
In the end, as ESPN's David Schoenfield argued, there is no incorrect choice.
"You can't go wrong either way," Schoenfield wrote. "I mean, this isn't Bob Hamelin winning the award over Manny Ramirez. These two are going to be fighting for the starting position in the All-Star Game for a long time."
Schoenfield ultimately favored Correa, and the majority of the BBWAA voters will likely do the same. That's fine. No one will look back in 30 years and raise an eyebrow.
If you're going purely on the stats, though, Lindor wins. More essentially, if you're looking at the future of the shortstop position in a post-Jeter world, we all win.
Mostly, get used to hearing about Correa versus Lindor—it's already a classic rivalry, and it's just achieving liftoff.
All statistics current as of Nov. 12 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.
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