Elephant Rumblings: Nick Allen is 2022 Athletics Nation Rookie of the Year

Happy Halloween, Athletics Nation!

MLB Commish Rob Manfred said some pretty spooky things about the prospects for the A’s and Oakland to pull through on a new ballpark. We should definitely talk about this, but I’ve gotta say at this point that I don’t know what to think anymore. The A’s will stay in Oakland or they will move. We’ll find out what is going to happen someday—and that someday is probably a lot closer than it was ten years ago.

Moving on to done deals, I’m pleased to announce that Nick Allen is the A’s 2022 Rookie of the Year according to the Athletics Nation community. Allen appeared in 100 games with the A’s and played Gold Glove caliber defense at shortstop in the latter part of the season to get the nod from AN despite slashing just .207/.256/.291 with a wRC+ of 61 in 326 plate appearances.

Fans seem to have faith enough that Allen will get good enough with the bat to justify being the A’s everyday shortstop next year and start earning some official hardware with his defensive wizardry.

Rookie of the Year was the only AN awards category this year in which the results didn’t nearly or completely unanimously favor the winner. Shea Langeliers garnered more than half as many ROY votes as Allen. Langeliers was probably the most hyped and heralded prospect to debut with the A’s in 2022, with the possible exception of Cristian Pache, whose extremely poor performance at the plate got him demoted back to AAA for part of the season.

Langeliers is expected to rake at the plate, and he got off to a respectable start this season, slashing .218/.261/.430 with a wRC+ of 97 in 153 plate appearances. He flashed high potential as a defender behind the plate, as well. But I would agree that Allen is more deserving of the ROY nod than Langeliers by merit of much more playing time, if nothing else. Allen posted 0.5 fWAR this season compared to 0.1 fWAR for Langeliers.

One other rookie received a handful of votes: relief pitcher Zach Jackson. ZachJack made his MLB debut at the beginning of the season and pitched well straight through August, putting in a solid season of relief by just about any measure before winding up on the IL late in the season with shoulder inflammation.

• Jackson, 2022: 3.00 ERA, 48 IP, 67 Ks, 33 BB, 1 HR, 2.78 FIP, 4.14 xFIP

Jackson was third among A’s relievers in both appearances and innings pitched and led all A’s pitchers with a 3.00 ERA. He also led all A’s rookies with 0.9 fWAR. I know that WAR isn’t always as widely accepted as a catch-all metric for pitchers, but I still don’t think there is a better stat that is calculated for both pitchers and position players and accounts for both quantity and quality. Pitching fWAR is derived from FIP, which I think is a pretty solid indicator of overall performance for pitchers. How well the fWAR sausage is made from there, I can’t say.

It was a tough choice for me between Allen and Jackson, but I went with the latter and think ZJ could really be something special if he develops better command and issues fewer free passes to first base next year. I’m also excited to see what Nick Allen can do in 2023 and I’m all too happy to congratulate him as Athletics Nation’s 2023 Rookie of the Year!

A’s Coverage:

• Nico: 2022 World Series Confirms That Playoffs Are A Crapshoot And They Aren’t
• Kawahara and Shea: Commissioner Rob Manfred: New A’s ballpark in Oakland looks unlikely ($)
• Shaikin: Rob Manfred: Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas isn’t imminent or guaranteed ($)
• Martin: Manfred expresses doubts on A’s Oakland stadium plan
• Lockard: Oakland A’s offseason outlook: Ramón Laureano, Cristian Pache and the outfield depth ($)
• Franco: A’s, Tyler Wade Agree To Minor League Deal

MLB News & Interest:

• Deeds and Polishuk: Nolan Arenado Won’t Opt Out Of Cardinals Contract
• Jenkins: New challenges ahead for Rangers’ Bochy, Padres’ Melvin in 2023 MLB season ($)
• Deeds: Dodgers Interested In Carlos Correa
• Franco and Adams: Previewing The 2022-23 Free Agent Class: Starting Pitcher
• Gelb: Phillies need Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola to muster more to overcome Astros in World Series ($)
• Polishuk: Royals Hire Matt Quatraro As Manager
• Today in Baseball History

Best of Twitter:

Lots of confusion surrounding Manfred’s pessimistic statement.

I’m about ready for some closure one way or the other.

It does seem that Nightengale was a tad careless with the scoop.

Brazil goes straight to the source.

A different kind of web gem.