Seattle Mariners and their chase of the Dodgers ROY record

Many out there are too young to know or even remember, but the Los Angeles Dodgers won an incredible five straight Rookie of the Year awards from 1992-1996. The Seattle Mariners could look to match that number, and it isn’t that ridiculous to believe.

Yes, the Mariners only have the start of it right now, with Kyle Lewis taking home the award for the 2020 shortened season. They also have an insanely strong farm system, arguably the strongest it has been, which makes them strong candidates to take home the award in the years to come.

This isn’t just about listing who I think is going to win the award for the Mariners over the next four years. I want to go a bit deeper.

Let’s take a look at who won the corresponding award for the Dodgers, and compare the Mariner that I think is going to win the award that year. For example, Kyle Lewis won the first one for the M’s, so we would compare him to Eric Karros. What would it take for them to not just win the ROY, but what would they need to accomplish in order to pass their Dodgers counterpart?

Also, it should be noted that the LAD are the gold standard for winning Rookie of the Year. During a conversation about this topic with a friend of mine, I had in my head that they won four straight. It’s because they did… from 1979-1982. Over an 18 year period, they took home half of the ROY Awards. Props to Rick Sutcliffe, Steve Howe, Fernando Valenzuela, and Steve Sax, but that’s not the streak of winners we are going to be looking at today.

We start off by looking at the most recent winner of the award in the American League, Lewis, and his Dodgers counterpart, Karros. To note, all WAR references and stats come from the fine folks over at Baseball-Reference.