End of season awards are very often a popularity contest. Playing well does matter the most, but things outside of a player's control like the market they play in and how much national coverage the powers that be decide to give guys. Unfortunately for the Atlanta Braves' Spencer Schwellenbach, he is finding that out the hard way.
After yet another solid performance in the Braves' rollercoaster win over the Twins on Tuesday, Schwellenbach sports a 3.72 ERA, 3.11 FIP, and 102 strikeouts in 87 innings of work. In his last nine starts, he has been a borderline ace with a 2.60 ERA while holding opposing batters to a .592 OPS. The strikeouts have been plentiful, he has been pitching deep into games, and the stuff passes the eye test. In short, Schwellenbach has been a revelation for a Braves team in desperate need of one.
What is Schwellenbach's reward for his good work? Not even a single top 5 vote among MLB.com's experts when they released their most recent NL Rookie of the Year poll.
Schwellenbach is getting no NL Rookie of the Year love despite his outstanding season and it sucks
To be fair, the National League has an absolutely loaded rookie class. 12 different rookies, including Schwellenbach, have posted fWARs north of 2 so far which is wild. No one is saying that Schwellenbach should be getting more consideration than guys like Jackson Merrill and Paul Skenes who are rightly the frontrunners.
However, it is absurd that Schwellenbach didn't get ANY love whatsoever in this poll. Guys like Masyn Winn and Michael Busch getting votes and placing outside the top 5 is fine. However, Schwellenbach has been strictly better than the Brewers' Tobias Myers who did receive votes and that the Mets' Jose Butto was an honorable mention and Schwellenbach wasn't is borderline criminal. Apparently an above average reliever is worth more attention than a budding rotation star so long as they play in New York.
Ultimately, these polls don't matter and are going to be skewed by MLB's coverage. If Schwellenbach keeps playing well, he will get some down ballot love in the voting when the dust settles. However, it is ridiculous that MLB's writer continue to just ignore the fact that one of the league's best young pitchers is showing out and is a big reason why the Braves have been able to hang around this year at all.