McGonigle Runs Away With AL Rookie of the Year; Stewart Takes the NL Award

THE least suspenseful night of awards week still produced its best story. Detroit Tigers infielder Kevin McGonigle was named the American League Rookie of the Year on Monday night, collecting 28 of 30 first-place votes from the Baseball Writers' Association of America, and Cincinnati Reds slugger Sal Stewart won the National League award with 20 first-place votes. McGonigle's margin — 204 points to 122 for Cleveland pitcher Parker Messick — matched the season he had just finished: he reached base 266 times, more than any rookie in Tigers history, and his 7.1 WAR by Baseball Reference's measure led the entire American League, pitchers included. No rookie had led his league in WAR since Mike Trout in 2012.

The shape of the year still seems slightly unreal. McGonigle arrived at spring training with 46 games of Double-A experience and was expected to start the season in the minors. Instead he skipped Triple-A entirely. The first big-league pitch he ever saw, on March 26 in San Diego with the bases loaded, he drove for a two-run double, on his way to a four-hit Opening Day at 21 — the youngest Tiger on an Opening Day roster since Omar Infante in 2003, and, per ESPN, the youngest player with four hits on Opening Day since Ken Griffey Jr. Seventeen games into his career, Detroit handed him an eight-year, $150 million extension. He finished with 156 games, a .278 average, a .376 on-base percentage, 18 home runs, 72 RBIs, 97 runs, 28 doubles and 12 stolen bases while splitting his time between shortstop and third base, and in July he started at shortstop in the All-Star Game in Philadelphia, about 15 miles from where he grew up.

“Growing up, loving this game from a young age, just believing in myself, having the confidence to see myself playing at the highest level of baseball one day, and to see it all pay off, it's just hard to put into words,” McGonigle told MLB Network. He also allowed that he has finally bought a suit — and a tuxedo for the BBWAA dinner in January — after showing up to his own extension signing without one. The historical company is louder than the ceremony. The last rookie to reach at least 97 runs, 28 doubles, 18 homers, 72 RBIs and 95 walks in a season was Ted Williams in 1939. McGonigle's 95 walks were the most by a rookie since Aaron Judge drew 127 in 2017, and his 266 times on base passed Harvey Kuenn's 260 from 1953, a Tigers rookie record that had stood for 73 years. He is the sixth Tiger to win the award — after Kuenn, Mark Fidrych, Lou Whitaker, Justin Verlander and Michael Fulmer — and the first Detroit infielder since Whitaker in 1978.

Messick made it a contest longer than the final count suggests. The Guardians left-hander went 12-9 with a 2.56 ERA and 193 strikeouts in 32 starts, and he and McGonigle were the only rookies named on all 30 ballots. Boston left-hander Payton Tolle finished third with 54 points after going 9-6 with a 3.03 ERA and 171 strikeouts in 26 starts.

Stewart, every single day

Stewart's case was built on showing up and slugging. The 22-year-old first baseman played all 162 games for Cincinnati — 161 of them starts — and drove the middle of the Reds' lineup with 32 home runs and 112 RBIs. He took 20 of the 30 first-place votes and 170 points to become the ninth Red to win the award and the first since Jonathan India in 2021. Where McGonigle lapped his field, Stewart had to hold off a genuine argument.

New York Mets outfielder Carson Benge finished second with seven first-place votes and 107 points, and his backers can recite the counter-case from memory: a .282 average, 20 home runs, 22 stolen bases and 65 RBIs in 156 games, with the better glove and the better legs. St. Louis Cardinals second baseman JJ Wetherholt was third with three first-place votes and 99 points, hitting .242 with 17 homers and excellent defense. The voters' answer, in the end, was old-fashioned — 32 and 112, posted every single day, in a lineup that leaned on him. It is hard to call that wrong. Benge's camp is still entitled to spend the winter calling it incomplete.

Both clubs cash a draft pick

Both winners also won something for their front offices. Under the Prospect Promotion Incentive, a club that puts a top prospect on its Opening Day roster and keeps him there earns an extra draft pick when he wins Rookie of the Year, so Detroit and Cincinnati each add a selection after the first round of the 2027 draft. Those picks have recently landed between No. 26 and No. 32 — roughly where the Tigers drafted McGonigle himself in 2023, after the Phillies, the team he grew up rooting for as a Chase Utley fan, took another infielder at No. 27. He passed on an Auburn commitment to sign, and was the Arizona Fall League MVP in 2025. The system is working exactly as designed when the bonus pick and the player it rewards turn out to be the same story.

Messick's week is not over

The runner-up gets a second hearing on Wednesday, when Messick is back on the ballot as an American League Cy Young finalist against Toronto's Dylan Cease and the Yankees' Cam Schlittler. The National League race matches Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski against Philadelphia's Cristopher Sanchez and Atlanta's Chris Sale, and Wednesday also brings the first Reliever of the Year awards: Bryan Baker, Cade Smith and Louis Varland in the AL, Jhoan Duran, Trevor Megill and Mason Miller in the NL. Manager of the Year lands Tuesday — Kevin Cash, Chad Tracy and Will Venable in the AL; Don Mattingly, Pat Murphy and Walt Weiss in the NL — and Thursday closes the week with the MVPs: Yordan Alvarez, Junior Caminero and Bobby Witt Jr. in the AL, and Pete Crow-Armstrong, Shohei Ohtani and Brice Turang in the NL. Every announcement airs on MLB Network at 7 p.m. ET, from voting conducted before the postseason. The full leaderboards behind each race live in the Stats Hub.

Meanwhile, in Las Vegas

The GM meetings opened Monday in Las Vegas, and the hot stove arrived with the same freeze we detailed in last night's roundup: a week into free agency, there has still been no major signing or trade. The closest thing to a transaction on Monday was a waiver claim — the Dodgers took infielder Christian Cairo from the Mets. The winter's one real market remains Tarik Skubal. Jon Heyman, speaking on MLB Network's “Hot Stove,” said he favors the Mets to land the two-time Cy Young winner, with the prediction markets putting the Mets at 37 percent and the incumbent Dodgers at 22. ESPN's Kiley McDaniel has the same two clubs as the primary bidders, with Detroit monitoring in case the price drops and the Yankees thinking about a run, while The Athletic's Sahadev Sharma reports the Cubs appear unlikely to enter a bidding war. Heyman's expectation is that Skubal signs in November, ahead of the December 1 expiration of the collective bargaining agreement.

That date is the week's real opponent. Qualifying-offer answers and the Rule 5 protection deadline land November 17, the tender deadline follows on November 20, and then the sport reaches December 1 with the market still waiting for its first domino. On Monday night, at least, none of that arithmetic mattered. Two 22-year-olds who were not supposed to be here yet — one who skipped Triple-A, one who never missed a game — took home the first hardware of the winter, and their teams got paid for letting them.