Corey Seager won the NL Rookie of the Year award unanimously.
Michael Fulmer took the AL honor – and that vote wasn’t all that close, either.
Seager and Fulmer were announced as the winners Monday night, when votes from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America were made public. Seager’s victory was almost a foregone conclusion after he hit .308 with 26 home runs and 72 RBI this year for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Fulmer, on the other hand, had to hold off a late challenge from New York Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez, who hit 20 home runs in only 53 games.
Fulmer’s season-long contributions for Detroit won out. The right-hander went 11-7 with a 3.06 ERA in 26 starts for the Tigers. He ended up receiving 26 of 30 first-place votes from the BBWAA, outdistancing Sanchez by a total of 142 points to 91.
Cleveland outfielder Tyler Naquin finished third in the AL race.
Seager received the maximum 150 points in the NL vote, followed by Washington outfielder Trea Turner (42) and Dodgers pitcher Kenta Maeda (37).
Seager is the 17th Dodgers player to earn Rookie of the Year honors – easily the most of any team – but the franchise hadn’t had a winner since Todd Hollandsworth in 1996.
The Dodgers, of course, had the first Rookie of the Year when Jackie Robinson won in 1947. They also had four winners in a row from 1979-82 and five in a row from 1992-96.
Seager, a first-round draft pick by the Dodgers in 2012, was the second player in a row to win NL Rookie of the Year unanimously. Kris Bryant of the Chicago Cubs did it last year.
Seager joins a list of Dodgers Rookie of the Year winners that includes luminaries like Robinson, Fernando Valenzuela (1981) and Mike Piazza (1993).
Fulmer is the fifth Tigers player to win the award, joining Justin Verlander (2006), Lou Whitaker (1978), Mark Fidrych (1976) and Harvey Kuenn (1953).
Detroit acquired Fulmer in 2015 from the Mets in the trade that sent Yoenis Cespedes to New York. Fulmer made his big league debut this April and lifted the Tigers with a sensational stretch leading up to the All-Star break. From May 21 through July 6, he went 7-1 with a 0.63 ERA.
Sanchez made his own bid with his torrid hitting down the stretch, but that wasn’t enough to close the gap on Fulmer.
FREE AGENCY: Mets second baseman Neil Walker and Philadelphia pitcher Jeremy Hellickson have accepted $17.2 million qualifying offers, giving up free agency to stay with their teams.
Eight other free agents did not accept the offers from their former teams by Monday’s 5 p.m. deadline: outfielders Jose Bautista (Toronto), Yoenis Cespedes (Mets), Ian Desmond (Texas), Dexter Fowler (Chicago Cubs) and Mark Trumbo (Baltimore), designated hitter Edwin Encarnacion (Toronto); closer Kenley Jansen (Los Angeles Dodgers); and third baseman Justin Turner (Dodgers).
Walker and Hellickson are signed players with Monday’s decisions and could be eligible for free agency again after next season.
The Mets got Walker in a trade with Pittsburgh last December. He hit .282 with 23 homers and 55 RBI in 113 games with New York before his season was cut short by back surgery.
The 31-year-old Walker, a first-round pick in the 2004 amateur draft, broke into the majors with the Pirates in 2009 and is a .273 hitter with 116 homers and 473 RBI in 949 career games.
Hellickson was traded from Arizona to Philadelphia last November.
The 29-year-old right-hander went 12-10 with a 3.71 ERA in 32 starts for the lowly Phillies this year.
CUBS: The popularity of winning a World Series title will be accompanied by schedule changes for the Chicago Cubs.
According to the team’s website, their 2017 opener against the St. Louis Cardinals has been moved from April 3 to April 2 at 7:35 p.m. at Busch Stadium. The switch was made to accommodate a national television audience, although no formal announcement has been made.
April 3 now will serve as a day off for both teams, who will resume their series with an April 4 game starting at 7:15 p.m. and an April 5 game at 12:45 p.m.
The Cubs’ home opener on April 10 against the Los Angeles Dodgers remains intact, for now.
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