San Francisco Giants: End-of-Season Award Chances

Rookie of the Year

Jun 14, 2015; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants pitcher Chris Heston (53) follows through on a pitch against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the fourth inning at AT&T Park. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

The Giants are one of the few teams that can boast multiple players deserving of the Rookie of the Year Award. Both Matt Duffy and Heston are having fantastic rookie seasons.

For much of the 2015 campaign, both Duffy and Heston have been flying under the radar. This can be attributed to the hype surrounding both Kris Bryant and Joc Pederson.

Many writers and analysts all but forgot about the other deserving rookies and keyed in on Bryant and Pederson. For much of the season, they merited the attention. Bryant leads all rookies in RBI and is second in home runs. Pederson has hit more home runs than any other rookie (including 20 before the All-Star Game) and leads all rookies in walks drawn.

However, Bryant and Pederson have also struck out the most and second-most out of all rookies, respectively. Additionally, since the All-Star break the two have cooled down quite a bit (especially Pederson).

Their recent struggles, combined with Duffy’s and Heston’s continues successes, opened the door for other players to be considered for the National League Rookie of the Year Award.

Duffy leads all qualified rookies in batting average and in hits, making his case a strong one. He has also played great defense at the hot corner, especially when considering third base is not his natural position; he has done an incredible job learning the position on the fly and filling in the gaping hole the Casey McGehee experiment left. If the voters take into account a player’s value to his team as opposed to strictly his statistical output, Duffy’s case for the award grows sharply.

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Heston has thrown the most innings and has racked up the most wins of any major league rookie. He is also the only National League rookie to throw a shutout (a no-hitter) and out of the four complete games thrown by National League rookies, Heston owns two of them.

Other rookies worthy of consideration are the Cardinals’ Randal Grichuk, the Pirates’ Jung-ho Kang, the Phillies’ Maikel Franco, and the Mets’ Noah Syndergaard.

Duffy and Heston need to continue to play well in order to win this award, but with slumps hurting some of the bigger names in this group, the race is wide open and each player controls their own destiny.

If there were one award a member of the Giants would take home, it would be this one.

Next: Manager of the Year