Told you so!

Back in August, I graced the Daily Trojan with the inaugural edition of this column, where I lamented that Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh appeared to be winning the race for American League MVP despite having a far worse statistical case than New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge.

Well, after all was said and done, baseball writers seemed to agree with me; it was announced Thursday that Judge took home the MVP award, receiving 17 first-place votes to Raleigh’s 13.

Take that, “narrative.” Another win for math.

A few days before the MVP announcement, however, a far more intriguing award was given out: Rookie of the Year.

While MVP is certainly the most prestigious of baseball’s annual awards, it relies too heavily on name recognition for my taste. Look at some of the winners from the past decade: Mike Trout; Bryce Harper; Ronald Acuña Jr; more recently, a whole bunch of Judge and Shohei Ohtani.

These are all well-established players — perennial All-Stars with hundreds of millions of dollars and Hall of Fame plaques already engraved with their faces. Where’s the fun in that? Give me an award that’s a total wild card, where anyone can make a name for themselves, no matter how bright their future actually is.

Enter: Rookie of the Year.

The bizarre land of Rookies of the Year is one without prejudice. Titans walk side-by-side with ants; emperors break bread with peasants. Phrases such as “career Wins Above Replacement” and “Hall of Fame trajectory” are meaningless. 

The list of MVPs I just gave you? All former recipients of Rookie of the Year. Legends of the game; yet, they stand on the same ground as outfielder Kyle Lewis, a man who has played just 70 games in five years since winning the award in 2020.

The tragedy of Lewis is a common fate — baseball’s top newcomers lost to time as quickly as they arrived. For every Rookie of the Year who goes on to make millions, another is discarded to the abyss of insignificance, forced to live on only as a “crazy pull” when a group of men sit in a circle and name obscure athletes.

Lewis was just one of a rapidly growing number of players to fall victim to a terrible curse: being The Other Rookie From That Year.

Looking back at the 2020 season, while Lewis took home ROTY honors in the American League, the National League’s award went to then-Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Devin Williams — a two-time All-Star who established himself as one of the best closers in the game thanks to an unhittable changeup known as the “Airbender.”

Williams has had a highly successful career since his rookie season and, despite an off year with the Yankees in 2025, he still projects to make bank in free agency over the next few months. But Lewis? Oh, he was the other rookie from that year. Nothing more.

The curse spreads far beyond just Lewis. The very next season, the AL’s award went to then-Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Randy Arozarena, who was named to this year’s All-Star Game. The NL award, on the other hand, went to Cincinnati Reds second baseman Jonathan India; in the four years that followed, he accumulated fewer total WAR than he did in 2021 alone.

2022 saw Mariners outfielder Julio Rodríguez earn AL honors; he’s been nothing short of a superstar ever since, finishing sixth in MVP voting this season. In the NL … Atlanta Braves outfielder Michael Harris II, who was named the midseason LVP — that’s “Least Valuable Player” — by The Athletic in July.

You get the point. One rookie goes on to be a star, while the other is lucky not to get designated for assignment. 

Which brings us to the present. Last week, the ROTY club earned its two newest members: Athletics first baseman Nick Kurtz and Braves catcher Drake Baldwin. The question asks itself: Who will live a life of glory, and who will be The Other One?

Well, no offense to any Atlanta fans reading, but the answer seems pretty clear to me. At just 22 years old, Kurtz had an absolute monster season at the plate, with an OPS over 1.000 along with 36 home runs and 86 RBIs in just 117 games. It may have been the best rookie season we’ve seen since Judge in 2017 or even Trout in 2012, which certainly sounds like “superstar in the making” to me.

As for Baldwin … I can’t lie, I don’t know a thing about him. He’s barely had that Rookie of the Year trophy for a week, and I’m already perceiving him as The Other Rookie From This Year.

But who knows? Maybe he’ll prove me wrong and break out for an even bigger season in 2026. After all, the last Braves player to win Rookie of the Year was Acuña, and he put up one of the most iconic MVP seasons in recent memory just a couple of years ago.

What’s that? Acuña wasn’t the last Brave to win Rookie of the Year? Then who … oh. Harris II.

Mr. Baldwin, let me give you some advice: The next time you’re looking for guidance from one of your teammates, try to find the one who has the pile of trophies in his locker, not the one who just struck out for his fifth time of the day — lest you end up being lost to the baseball archives as just another Other Rookie.

Bennett Christofferson is a junior writing about baseball’s biggest stories and controversies in his column, “Dugout Diaries,” which typically runs every other Thursday. He is also a sports editor at the Daily Trojan.