How mad would you have been if Drake Baldwin didn't win Rookie of the Year?

"I absolutely did not remember that Rookie of the Year was being announced yesterday. If I had, a variant of the title of this post would've been yesterday's question. At that time, whether justice would prevail or not was still uncertain. Right now, we can all celebrate. Something good happened this year, hooray. But, what if Drake Baldwin hadn't won, and it had gone to Cade Horton instead?"

"As Dan Szymborski noted, Baldwin had the fWAR lead and there were few factors suggesting that either his total was undeserved, or that other players should've had upward adjustments to how they were considered beyond WAR to warrant leapfrogging Baldwin. Still, it could have happened - theoretically. Paul Skenes won over Jackson Merrill last year and Luis Gil won over Colton Cowser. Horton winning over Baldwin wouldn't have been as egregious as Gil over Cowser, so there you go."

The Rookie of the Year announcement was overlooked initially, but the final outcome prompted celebration. Baldwin led in fWAR and there were few reasons to view his total as undeserved or to elevate other candidates based on factors beyond WAR. Alternative winners remained theoretically possible given recent precedent, such as Paul Skenes over Jackson Merrill and Luis Gil over Colton Cowser. A Horton win over Baldwin would not have been as egregious as Gil over Cowser. A pending PPI pick could have made an alternate outcome more contentious and provoked ire.

Read at Battery Power