Of all the MLB awards, Rookie of the Year might be the most difficult to predict. It's hard to pinpoint not only which youngsters will burst onto the scene, but also when they’ll get called up. The yearslong odyssey of Minor League Baseball can be a winding journey that makes forecasting MLB arrivals a guessing game, particularly with service time manipulation used by front offices writ large.
That makes our preseason picks look somewhat ill-informed in hindsight. A lot has changed in the intervening three months, which makes now feel like as good a time as any to check in on the race to see who’s baseball’s best freshman.