The Yankees have a good chance of accomplishing a feat they've never accomplished before, and have only done once in both leagues since Rookie of the Year voting was expanded in 1980: finishing two players in the top five for both MVP and Rookie of the Year.
Aaron Judge and Juan Soto have spent most of this season as arguably top-five contenders for the AL MVP award, and Austin Wells is on pace to finish in the top five of AL Rookie of the Year voting along with Luis Gil after a strong second half of the season.
Before 1980, rookie voting had a bit of a Wild West element. For the first two years (1947-1948), when the national organization of the Baseball Writers' Association of America selected the winner, there was one award for both leagues. Until 1956, each voter determined their own definition of a rookie. The current guidelines for rookie eligibility – players with fewer than 130 at-bats, fewer than 50 innings pitched and fewer than 45 days on the active roster at the start of the season – weren't codified until 1971.
Then in 1980, in recognition of the expansion to 26 teams from the 16 that existed when Jackie Robinson first won the Rookie of the Year award in 1947, the ballot expanded from one winner to the top three. With 30 teams now and a greater willingness than ever to use young players, I would argue that the ballot should be expanded to five teams. But that's a story for another time…
Prior to 1980, there were five occasions when a team had two players finish in the top five in both the MVP and Rookie of the Year categories, including 1975, when Boston's Fred Lynn won the AL MVP and Jim Rice came in third, and the two also finished first and second in the AL Rookie of the Year awards.
Since 1980, this has only happened once, in 2007, when the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez won his third AL MVP award. For the Red Sox, David Ortiz and Mike Lowell finished fourth and fifth, respectively, while Dustin Pedroia won Rookie of the Year and Daisuke Matsuza finished fourth. (Another Red Sox player, Hideki Okajima, finished sixth.) These high-end performances also led to Boston winning the World Series.
Lowell, Pedroia and Ortiz all had great postseason hits, with Lowell winning the World Series MVP, and Matsuzaka, despite not having a great overall performance, won Game 7 of the AL Championship Series against Cleveland and Game 3 of the World Series to help sweep Colorado.
If the Yankees receive such widespread recognition this year, there will be added pressure to end their World Series drought, which has seen them not play in a season since 2009.
The awards are voted on by the BBWAA before the postseason begins but aren't announced until several weeks after the World Series ends, so the Yankees won't know the results until October.
But it's been clear for some time that, barring a surprising change in the final two weeks, either Judge or Kansas City's Bobby Witt Jr. will win the American League MVP award, with Soto and Baltimore's Gunnar Henderson likely to finish third or fourth anyway.
The American League rookie of the year race is in flux. The top five looks set to be Gill, Wells, Boston's Wilyer Abreu, Baltimore's Colton Cowser and Oakland's Mason Miller, with Cleveland's excellent setup man Cade Smith likely to crash the party. But it's hard to imagine a top five without Gill, who filled in well for Gerrit Cole in the first half, and Wells, who solved the Yankees' cleanup mess in the second half.
Rookies like Gill, Wells and Anthony Volpi (who finished eighth in last year's AL Rookie of the Year awards) have potential, but tomorrow isn't guaranteed, so the pressure is on the Yankees now.
From 2014-18, the Yankees had five players finish in the top three for AL Rookie of the Year (Judge, Dellin Betances, Gary Sanchez, Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres) and two finish in sixth place (Masahiro Tanaka and Jordan Montgomery). Judge finished second in the AL MVP and won Rookie of the Year in 2017, but a Game 7 loss to Houston in the AL Championship Series that year was the closest the Yankees came to a World Series berth in that series. Only Judge and Torres remain from that group, with Torres coming off his retirement this season.
If Judge and Soto finish in the top five for MVP, that wouldn't be unusual for teammates: Three pairs of teammates finished in the top five in both leagues last year, at least one pair of teammates has finished in the top five in each of the past four seasons in both leagues, and the AL has had a pair of teammates in the top five in six of the past seven seasons.
However, this becomes less likely when the top 5 MVPs of teammates match up with the top 5 rookies, in part because MVPs are primarily chosen from the best teams, rookies are chosen from all over the place, and lower-ranked teams tend to give their young players more freedom.
For example, if Judge wins the AL MVP and either Gill or Wells wins the Rookie of the Year award, he would be the first player to win both awards since 2010, when the Rangers' Josh Hamilton won the AL MVP award and Neftali Feliz won Rookie of the Year. Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki won both awards in 2001. The last time this happened in the National League was with the Cubs in 1998, when Sammy Sosa won the MVP award and Kerry Wood won Rookie of the Year.
On September 9, 2024, he will pitch one inning against the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium.
During the league's smaller years and Yankees' dominance, the Yankees had Yogi Berra win MVP and Gil McDougald win Rookie of the Year in 1951, Berra/Bob Grimm win both awards in 1954, Mickey Mantle/Tony Kubek win both in 1957, and Roger Maris/Tom Tresh win both awards in 1962.
The 1962 season was the closest the Yankees came to winning the quadruple title they were aiming for this season. Maris and Mickey Mantle were 1st and 2nd in MVP, and Tresh won the Rookie of the Year award. In 1958, Bob Turley was 2nd in AL MVP, Mantle was 5th, and Ryne Duren was 2nd in Rookie of the Year. In 1957, when Mantle and Kubek won, McDougald was 5th in MVP. In 1951, when Berra and McDougald won, Allie Reynolds was 3rd in MVP. And in 1949, Phil Rizzuto and Joe Page were 2nd and 3rd in MVP, and Jerry Coleman was 3rd in Rookie of the Year.
In those five seasons, the Yankees won the World Series four times, losing to the Braves in seven games in 1957. Sure, it was a different era for a variety of reasons, with only the teams with the best records in each league making it to the World Series.
The Yankees would have to win the playoffs at least three times, and probably four, to be champions, but it's almost certain that four Yankees players will finish in the top five for MVP and Rookie of the Year for the first time, and it's possible that a Yankee player will win those awards handily.
Is this simply an honor for the organization, or a sign of what's to come in October?
