2017 AL Rookie of the Year favorites: Can anybody in the field catch Aaron Judge?

Yes, you can consider a certain Yankee slugger to be a strong frontrunner for this hardware

As we run through a quick look at the current races for the major awards, it's time to look at the AL Rookie of the Year. Right now, it's not much of a contest, as a certain Yankees slugger to be named is the undisputed heavy favorite to take home the hardware. Still, some other junior-circuit rooks merit a mention 

By way of reminder, we aren't necessarily revealing how we'd vote but instead using recent BBWAA voting history as a guide to how the vote would likely shake out. Onward ... 

The overwhelming favorite

Yes, Judge is the obvious frontrunner in this one. At this writing, Judge leads the AL in home runs, walks, runs scored, and on-base percentage. As well, he leads the majors right now in slugging percentage and OPS. Relative to the competition, he leads all rookie qualifiers in OPS by almost 200 points. The question isn't whether Judge is going to win AL Rookie of the Year. The question is whether he's going to become the first player since Ichiro to win Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season. 

Not going to win but worth mentioning

Benintendi was the consensus choice for AL ROY honors coming into the season, and he's indeed put up a solid body of work. In 103 games, he's authored an OPS+ of 103 while stealing 12 bases in 15 attempts and playing a nifty left field. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not close to being on Judge's level.

Among AL rookies, only Judge has hit more homers than Davidson's 22. The power numbers are impressive, but on the other hand Davidson's saddled his team with a sub-.300 OBP.

Look, Devers has played in just 11 games, so this is obviously premature. Still, he's absolutely raked over those 11 games, and that's in keeping with his recent history of raking against older competition. He's one of the best prospects in baseball, he's played like it thus far, and he's got a clear path to regular playing time the rest of the way. That puts him on the radar. 

On a rate basis, Faria is probably Judge's strongest competition. Right now, he boasts an ERA+ of 149 with a strikeout per inning. Working against Faria, however, is that he didn't make his big-league debut until June and as such has just 11 starts to his credit. He's been excellent, but he just lacks the volume to compete with Judge.

Gamel's got solid enough overall numbers (113 OPS+), and he runs the bases well, especially by the standards of a corner defender.

Gurriel at age 32 is by a large margin the "senior citizen" of 2017 rookies. This season, he's solidified first base for the AL's best team. In 97 games, he's put up an OPS+ of 119 with 30 doubles and 14 homers. 

Mancini after 97 games owns a line of .297/.346/.517 (129 OPS+) with 18 homers and as many doubles. He's also spent time at three different positions along the way.