THE REDBIRD REVIEW
With the 2026 baseball season zooming through time and space at a seemingly accelerated pace – can we please slow it down? – I wanted to take a look at JJ Wetherholt’s shot of winning the National League Rookie of the Year award.
This is a followup to the first piece I published on Wetherholt this week on how it’s possible for him to establish a new high-value standard for a rookie on two different fronts: (1) most Wins Above Replacement by a rookie in St. Louis Cardinals history, and (2) most WAR by a rookie second baseman in major-league history.
And yes, JJ is on track to pull off both accomplishments because of his superb all-around skill that makes him such a standout on offense, defense and at running the bases.
Well, if Wetherholt completes the year with the best all-around season – ever – by a Cardinal rookie and claims the top spot on the leaderboard for the best season (ever) by a MLB rookie second baseman …
Shouldn’t that seal the “top NL rookie” distinction for 2026? One would think so. But the waiting game is necessary because 67 percent of the remaining regular-season schedule is on the docket. All of these season awards are unresolved, and I’m just a curious man that’s trying to do some early handicapping.
Note: the shorthand bWAR stands for the Baseball Reference version of Wins Above Replacement. And the fWAR reference specifies the FanGraphs model for assessing WAR value.
Through June 3, Wetherholt was on pace for an 8.0 bWAR season. To put that in context, the only MLB rookies to ascend to such a stratospheric level in the modern era are Mike Trout (10.5 bWAR in 2012) and Aaron Judge (8.0 bWAR in 2017.)
Wetherholt currently rests at 2.9 bWAR and 2.5 fWAR and both metrics are a full win higher than any other National League rookie in ‘26.
The other good candidates for NL Rookie consideration are (in no order) Pirates shortstop Konnor Griffin, Reds corner infielder Sal Stewart, and Mets starting pitcher Nolan McLean.
Assuming that all candidates stay healthy and play strong, a tight race could come down to each voter’s philosophy on what’s most important?
Is it the counting stats?
The baseball card stats?
The keep-it-simple criteria preferred by old-school voters who don’t like the fancy stats and the alphabet-coded performance evaluation tools known as wOBA, WAA, WPA, RAA, Rbat+ – or perhaps RE24, wRC+, DRC+. DRP and DRA minus?
What about a gaudy home-run total that’s catnip for some voters? How about enough RBIs to fill a fleet of trucks? How about numbers that are easily inflated by playing 81 games per season in a municipal driving range known as Great American Ball Park? (Sal Stewart, maybe?)
Would a candidate be downgraded because of a less than sterling batting average? Wetherholt, currently batting .249, could lose points because of that. Even in the year 2026, there’s an element of fans and media who cling to the outdated notion of the batting average being everything or close to it.
Would it come down to the power of early impressions formed by a preseason media-narrative buildup for more publicized candidates? Konnor Griffin comes to mind.
A giddy national baseball media went crackers over the irresistible potential fantasyland story of a recent high-school grad and 19-year old who arrives in Pittsburgh to slam 35 homers and lead the sad-sack Pirates to long overdue glory? Griffin can inspire voters.
If the Mets pitcher, McLean, can get his ERA down, keep piling up strikeouts, and heroically “win” more games for a mediocre team… hey, it’s New York. A virtual online sports-media army would form to campaign for McLean with a zealotry previously reserved for NY pitching legends like Tom Seaver.
The case for Wetherholt will be more subtle and nuanced. The case for Wetherholt will rely on discerning voters who possess the intelligence to identify value.
These voters would prefer that an award be based on all-around excellence – and go to a dude even if doesn’t swat 30 homers and drive in 100 runs. And if enough voters view Wetherholt as a guy who transcends counting stats, he could be a runaway winner.
Do I trust that to happen?
Heavens, no.
But as we sit here today, here’s the in-progress case for Wetherholt. And for now I’m focusing on the position players. I’m sure I will be posting updates on the NL Rookie of the Year race as the season deepens, and McLean will be evaluated if necessary.
WINS ABOVE REPLACEMENT
WAR matters because it assesses value in three different areas – offense, defense and baserunning – to form a composite metric.
bWAR: Wetherholt 2.9, Griffin 1.6, Stewart 1.3
fWAR: Wetherholt 2.5, Stewart 1.3, Griffin 0.9
Conclusion: No contest. Wetherholt.
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WIN PROBABILITY ADDED
I’ll list this in order of NL ranking for all position players. WPA is a gauge of performance value in higher leverage situations.
– Wetherholt, 1.64 WPA, No. 7
– Stewart, 0.17 WPA, No. 55
– Griffin, minus 0.08 WPA, No. 62
Conclusion: no contest. Wetherholt.
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STATCAST VALUE RATINGS
Three categories. Listed by percentile.
The higher the percentile, the better the player’s performance at a specific skill.
Batting Run Value: Stewart 76, Wetherholt 73, Griffin 49.
Fielding Run Value: Wetherholt 99, Stewart 51, Griffin 19
Base Running Value: Griffin 99, Wetherholt 96, Stewart
Composite Value, all three categories: Wetherholt 89, Stewart 63, Griffin 56.
Conclusion: No contest. Wetherholt.
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DEFENSIVE RUNS SAVED
– Wetherholt +9, which ranks 4th overall in NL (all positions.) He plays second base.
– Griffin +3, tied for 28th overall in NL; he plays shortstop.
– Stewart 0, tied for 84th overall in NL; he plays 1st and 3rd base.
Conclusion: no contest. Wetherholt.
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OUTS ABOVE AVERAGE
–Wetherholt, +11, 3rd in MLB (any position)
– Stewart, 0, 115th in MLB
– Griffin, minus 4, 220th in MLB
Conclusion: no contest. Wetherholt.
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BASERUNNING
I'm using BsR, the FanGraphs metric.
– Griffin: +4.5 baserunning runs above league average. This ranks 1st among NL players.
– Wetherholt: + 2.3 runs above average, 7th among NL players.
– Stewart: minus 0.2 below league average, tied for 53rd among NL players.
Conclusion: Griffin gets the win over Wetherholt! But JJ comes in strong. Nothing wrong with being the seventh-best baserunner on a list of 93 playing-time qualified NL players.
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OFFENSIVE CATEGORIES
wRC+: Stewart% above league average, Wetherholt 20% above average, Griffin 4% above average. Slight edge to Stewart.
OPS+: Similar. Stewart is 24% above average, Wetherholt is 19% above average and Griffin is 4% above average.
Offensive WAR: Wetherholt 1.9, Griffin 1.3, Stewart 1.3. That’s a clear edge for Wetherholt.
FanGraphs offensive rating: This metric accounts for batting and baserunning performance. Wetherholt leads NL rookies with 8.1 runs above average, with Stewart next at 6.9 runs above average and Griffin 5.4 runs better than average. The clear edge to Wetherholt.
Slugging percentage on contact: Stewart .518, Wetherholt .500, and Griffin a distant third. So even though Stewart has hit for more power, the difference is relatively minor.
Ideal Contact Rate: Wetherholt 48.4%, Stewart 39.5%, and Griffin 35.6%. This means JJ has a larger share of balls in play that are struck well.
Plate Discipline: Wetherholt has a slim lead over Stewart in walk-strikeout ratio; they rank first and second respectively among NL rookies. Griffin is 12th among NL rookies in K-BB ratio.
Quality of Contact: Stewart leads JJ and Griffin by a good amount in barrel rate. Here are their hard-hit rates: Wetherholt 48.4%, Stewart 39.5%, Griffin 35.6%
Expected wOBA: Slight edge to Stewart (.364) over Wetherholt (.359). Griffin is way down in the rankings at .303.
As I mentioned earlier, Stewart’s Batting Run Value is in the 76th percentile compared to Wetherholt being in the 73th percentile. Griffin isn’t close to living in that neighborhood.
While Stewart and Griffin get a check mark over Wetherholt in a couple of offensive metrics, Wetherholt is a close second when he isn’t ranked 1st. But with defense and baserunning added in – especially defense – Wetherholt is the vastly superior all-around player. Which is supported by his much higher WAR and WPA over Stewart and Griffin.
At least on June 4.
Lots of numbers in here.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015.
Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach.
Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil on a daily basis.
Bernie has covered and written about many great St. Louis sports team athletes including Albert Pujols, Kurt Warner, Brett Hull, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Jim Edmonds, Marshall Faulk, Scott Rolen, Mark McGwire, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Al MacInnis, Brian Sutter, Bernie Federko, Chris Pronger, Dan Dierdorf, Jackie Smith and Aeneas Williams.
Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues, Saint Louis U, and Mizzou football and basketball.
Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STLSportsCentral, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows.
And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.