Corey Seager won the 2016 NL Rookie of the Year with a unanimous 100% vote. Kris Bryant won it last year with a unanimous vote. Jose Abreau won it the year before that, also with unanimous vote. Three years in a row with a unanimous Rookie of the Year. How often do Rookie of Years win with a 100% vote?
It was a bit tricky finding out, because every single Rookie of the Year list I found online does not list the percentage of the vote. You have to click into each individual year to find out the vote. To get a complete list of all the voting for Rookie of the Year, I compiled the data of all the votes for all the years, and put it into a spreadsheet. Here’s the results.
From 1947 to 1984, there were only three unanimous Rookie of the Years:
- NL 1956 Frank Robinson
- NL 1959 Willie McCovey
- AL 1972 Carlton Fisk
Over 38 years, roughly one every 12 years.
Starting with Vince Coleman in 1985 to today, there has been 16 unanimous Rookie of the Year winners.
- NL 1985 Vince Coleman
- AL 1987 Mark McGwire
- NL 1987 Benito Santiago
- AL 1990 Sandy Alomar
- AL 1993 Tim Salmon
- NL 1993 Mike Piazza
- AL 1996 Derek Jeter
- AL 1997 Nomar Garciaparra
- NL 1997 Scott Rolen
- NL 2001 Albert Pujols
- AL 2008 Evan Longoria
- NL 2011 Craig Kimbrel
- AL 2012 Mike Trout
- AL 2014 Jose Abreu
- NL 2015 Kris Bryant
- NL 2016 Corey Seager
Over 31 years, about every 2 years there is a unanimous Rookie.
Here’s a fun infographic visualizing the timeline of unanimous Rookie of the Year winners:
Just a thought. Since my hand-written scorecards were such a hit from the 2016 World Series, maybe I should do all my infographics as hand-written on paper.
I like that Vince Coleman was the first player to start the era of the unanimous Rookie of the Year.