While we all patiently wait for Hot Stove SZN to start heating up, bows are being tied around everything that happened leading up to this point.
One last order of business before the offseason can truly start is to reward the best players in baseball from last season with the top annual awards. Sonny Gray is a Cy Young Finalist, becoming the second Twins pitcher this decade to earn that honor, but he wasn't the only player to be recognized by the BBWAA.
Rookie of the Year was handed out in both the American League and National League on Monday. While the Twins didn't secure any finalists there were votes thrown Minnesota's way.
After the votes were all tallied, it was revealed that Edouard Julien finished in the Top 10. He didn't receive any first-place votes, as Baltimore Orioles rookie Gunnar Henderson was the unanimous winner, but Julien still managed to get some love from a few writers.
AL Rookie of the Year voting totals: Edouard Julien finishes 7th
When awards finalists were revealed earlier this month, the Twins were notably snubbed despite having two of the best rookies in the league this season. Henderson, Tanner Bibee, and Triston Casas were all finalists, but that doesn't mean votes still trickled down to guys who weren't on the short list.
Julien received a pair of third-place votes, which was good enough to have him finish eighth in total voting this year. From now until the rest of time, he'll have a little 'ROY-8' next to his debut season on Baseball Reference.
Here's the final AL Rookie of the Year voting results:
Player | Team | 1st Place | 2nd Place | 3rd Place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Gunnar Henderson | Orioles | 30 | 0 | 0 |
Tabber Bibee | Guardians | 0 | 20 | 7 |
Triston Casas | Red Sox | 0 | 6 | 7 |
Josh Jung | Rangers | 0 | 3 | 7 |
Yainer Diaz | Astros | 0 | 1 | 3 |
Masataka Yoshida | Red Sox | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Edouard Julien | Twins | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Anthony Volpe | Yankees | 0 | 0 | 1 |
It's still a bit of a sting to see Julien so low and to not see Royce Lewis on the list at all. There was a pretty legitimate case for Eddy to be in finalist the Rookie of the Year conversation, and had Lewis not gotten hurt there's a chance he ended up bumping Casas to be in the final group.
As it turns out, Julien was in the conversation but was relegated to the edge of it. Still, the Twins finishing with a rookie who received votes is validation of the youth movement the team experienced this season. So much attention was paid to Lewis and the season -- and postseason -- he put together, but the fact that Julien was the one who ended up with votes goes to show how deep the young talent in Minnesota flows.