The NL Rookie of the Year Race Is Wide Open

If at this point in the baseball season you are not 100% locked in, then you may never be.

We have reached the pinnacle of the baseball season. Playoff races are heating up. Some teams are trying to stay afloat after being atop their divisions most of the year, while other surprising teams have taken command of their division leads, and, oh yeah, the National League Rookie of the Year race is pure chaos. Especially if you take a look at what the odds were to begin the season.

Per our partners at BetMGM, the National League Rookie of the Year race opened up with three players pretty close in odds to take home the award. The prize of the international signing period, Dodgers right-hander Roki Sasaki, led the pack with +250 odds. After him, Nationals outfielder Dylan Crews (+300) and Cubs infielder Matt Shaw (+400) rounded out the top three.

None of whom seems to be sniffing the conversation as we enter play on August 13th.

Sasaki has been on the injured list with a shoulder injury since May 13 and is just now beginning to go on a rehab assignment.

Crews was struggling so badly that eventually the Nationals had to option him to Triple-A, where he has also been transferred to the 60-day injured list as he works his way back from an oblique strain he suffered in May.

Shaw has turned his season around since the second half began, but still has been quite a disappointment when you consider the expectations that many had for him coming into the year.

At this point, those three are not remotely close to touching the new top three – those who look to be the ones who will compete for the award as we inch ever closer to the end of the season.

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MLB

NL & AL Rookie of the Year Odds 2025: Who’s MLB’s Next Young Star? (August 2025)

MLB

The Marlins Have Found Yet Another Rookie Standout

Drake Baldwin (C) – Atlanta Braves (-110)

2025 stats: 87 G .285/.352/.470 13 HR, 131 wRC+, 2.3 fWAR

The 2025 season for the Atlanta Braves has been one to forget.

They sit fourth in the NL East with a 51-68 record, and if you gave Alex Anthopoulos the option to MLB the Show simulate the rest of the year, he would ask where to sign.

One of the few bright spots has been the emergence of young catcher Drake Baldwin, the Braves’ number one prospect according to Just Baseball entering the season.

Prior to the start of the season, it was known that Baldwin would get his opportunity from Opening Day after Sean Murphy sustained an injury in spring training.

Currently tied for the lead in the Rookie of the Year race, per BetMGM, Baldwin looks to be well on his way to awarding the Braves the 28th overall pick in next year’s MLB Draft, as well as earning himself one full year of service time, because of the new incentives put in place to prevent teams from purposefully manipulating their top prospects’ service time.

Aside from the surface-level stats, which are highly impressive, if you are someone who likes to look at percentile rankings on Baseball Savant, then you are going to love what you see from Baldwin’s page:

While his catching has left a little to be desired, he has made vast improvements from how he began the season, when it seemed as if he was going to allow all opposing players to steal bases freely throughout the year.

Not only has Baldwin earned the respect of his manager Brian Snitker, as well as the organization as a whole, but he has also become a fan favorite amongst the Atlanta faithful.

If you look at the day-after highlights from Braves games, whether it’s a win or a loss, Baldwin is consistently finding ways to impact the team in a positive way.

If you have not had the chance to watch Drake Baldwin play yet this year, I can assure you that you should – and then you’ll understand why he is such a strong contender for the award.

Isaac Collins (OF) – Milwaukee Brewers (-110)

2025 stats: 98 G .292/.389/.451, 8 HRs, 13 SBs, 140 wRC+, 3.1 fWAR

If someone were to tell you that a Milwaukee Brewer would be near the top of this list just a month ago, you likely would have believed them. The only thing is that you would have assumed it was the fireballer Jacob Misiorowski who was in contention for the ROY.

Given that “The Miz” is currently on the IL dealing with a lower leg injury, his chances of winning the award are likely all but gone at this point. However, that has given rookie outfielder Isaac Collins a chance to step in and enter the conversation himself.

Unlike Baldwin, since Collins did not enter the season on two, let alone any, of the major publications’ top 100 prospect lists, he is not eligible to receive a full year of service time, nor a PPI pick for the Brewers, if he takes home the award at season’s end.

However, I am sure that the Brewers would not be bothered in the slightest if it meant that Collins continued to produce the way he has been and it leads them to the World Series in October.

Collins has been the gift that keeps on giving since he made his way into the Brewers’ lineup, and even more so once his teammate, Jackson Chourio, landed on the injured list with a hamstring injury.

With Chourio slated to be out for around a month, Collins is in a prime position to overtake Baldwin for the best NL ROY odds if he continues on his torrid pace and leads the Brewers to an NL Central title.

Oh, not to mention that he also sits at 7 OAA thanks to his play in the Brewers’ outfield. Collins is just playing an amazing overall game at the moment and has been a fun watch down the stretch.

Agustín Ramírez (C) – Miami Marlins (+2000)

2025 stats: 94 G .236/.282/.440 17 HR, 52 RBIs, 96 wRC+, 0.1 fWAR

Agustín Ramírez got off to a torrid start when he was first called up by the Marlins.

While his numbers may have declined since then, he has still provided the Marlins lineup with plenty of electricity and is a big reason why the Fish are a dark-horse contender for the final Wild Card spot in the National League.

Easily considered the headliner in the deal that sent Jazz Chisholm Jr. to the Yankees last season, Ramírez seems to be the answer for the Marlins at a catching position that, since the days of JT Realmuto, has been a bit of a black hole.

If Ramírez were to get on another one of those unbelievable stretches that he is more than capable of with his aggressive approach at the plate, he, like Baldwin for the Braves, would net the Marlins a PPI pick and accrue a full year of service time.

The one big reason that a stat like fWAR isn’t high on Ramírez is the fact that he is still developing behind the plate. He has had his fair share of struggles back there, and it has impacted his overall numbers.

Still, we cannot take anything away from what the 23-year-old catcher has brought to a young Marlins team that has easily exceeded all expectations in 2025.

Are There Any Other Candidates?

At this point, it seems as if the race is going to come down to the three players mentioned above. In all honesty, it has become more of a two-man race than anything else.

NL Rookie of the Year Odds 2025: Favorites (via BetMGM)

According to BetMGM, the next few rookie contenders are Cubs right-hander Cade Horton (+2200), the aforementioned Jacob Misiorowski (+2500), and the Reds’ own flamethrower, Chase Burns (+3000).

Who Takes the Cake?

This may be one of the closest Rookie of the Year races that we have seen in a long time.

At this time, it may boil down to who finishes the season the hottest, considering how Baldwin and Collins continue to go back and forth jumping atop this odds board.

While overall team play does not normally impact how Rookie of the Year voting goes, if Collins continues to be a big-time driving force behind the success of the league’s best team, the Milwaukee Brewers, it would not surprise me if he is the one to hear his name called on MLB Network on the night the awards are handed out.