New York Yankees Miguel Andujar
Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images

Aiming for back-to-back Rookie of the Year winners, the New York Yankees were unable to come through as Miguel Andujar got snubbed on the AL Rookie of the Year.

Allison Case

Monday afternoon, the AL Rookie of the Year was announced and Miguel Andujar was not the winner. As voted on by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA), Shohei Ohtani emerged as the clear favorite.

Ohtani won with 25 first-place votes while Andujar finished second, earning five first-place votes and 20 second-place votes.

Andujar lost to two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Ohtani impressed at the plate, clubbing 22 home runs in a shortened season with an overall .285 batting average and .564 slugging percentage. On the mound, Ohtani went 4-2 with a 3.31 ERA in 10 starts.

While Andujar didn’t take to the mound at all, he certainly stood out in an incredible New York Yankees lineup and deserved some recognition from BBWAA. The rookie came on as a huge surprise, finishing out the year with a .297 batting average. He played in 149 games and hit 27 home runs with his signature helicopter-style swing.

Andujar also led all MLB rookies in hits (170), doubles (47), RBI (92) and a few other significant categories. He also earned the AL Rookie of the Month honor for the months of June and August.

The only downside, it seems, to Andujar’s play was his defensive miscues, which included 15 errors in 136 games. He hoped to improve on that by taking early fielding practice often and working closely with Alex Rodriguez.

While Andujar wasn’t the only rookie that made a significant impact on the team this season, Gleyber Torres went through a major slump early in the season that likely caused his slip in the rankings for this award.

Perhaps the biggest punch in the gut is the fact that Ohtani wins after Hideki Matsui was denied the award in 2003 because of his career in Japan.

Congratulations on Miguel Andujar on a stellar season despite not receiving the recognition he so deserved.


Allison is just a girl with an enormous passion for the game of baseball and the written word. Based in Upstate New York, her life-long relationship with the New York Yankees is something that she developed through close relationships with her mother and grandfather. An aspiring sports writer, she graduated with a journalism degree and is finding places to share her excitement about the sporting world and how it affects us all.