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2026 Rookie of the Year Race Is Getting VERY Interesting
The 2026 Rookie of the Year races have gotten to the point where I’m starting to pay a lot more attention to the cards, especially with some of these red rookie cards already climbing.
In the AL, Kevin McGonigle looks like the guy to beat, but Murakami is still right there. In the NL, it feels like a two-man fight between JJ Wetherholt and Sal Stewart. MLB’s latest expert poll actually had them tied at 144 points, with Sal getting 17 first-place votes to Wetherholt’s 19. And Sal has been absolutely raking. He just hit his 27th homer and took over the MLB RBI lead with 94.
That’s why I’m really glad I grabbed my Sal Stewart DIY RPA when I did. 😂 Watching the red rookie cards climb while he keeps putting up numbers makes those early buys look a whole lot better.
So who are you buying right now?
McGonigle? Murakami? Wetherholt? Sal? Or is there somebody outside the obvious names that you think is about to make a serious run and send their red rookies through the roof?
I’m especially interested in who everyone thinks is still cheap BEFORE the Rookie of the Year voting gets settled.
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10 Replies
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I have been buying Murakami but my fear with some rookies is that after a year of having tape on them how do people adjust to them? Guess thats the risk you take with rookies
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Yeah, that’s definitely the gamble with buying rookies early. A guy can look incredible for a year and then pitchers figure out how to attack him, or the league adjusts and suddenly the numbers aren’t quite the same. Murakami is one I’d be comfortable taking that chance on though. The talent is obviously there, and if he makes that adjustment, the cards could look very different a year from now. That’s the fun (and terrifying) part of prospecting, lol
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I’m rooting for Sal mainly so your card has bigger and better value!
To be honest, though, I haven’t seen that ROTY makes a huge difference in card values. After all Michael Harris won and I’ve been PCing him since before that and I haven’t seen his card values be particularly strong. I also see that Drake Baldwin’s cards aren’t getting the prices I’d have expected the year after he won ROTY. I have a 1st Bowman Chrome auto that got a PSA 9 and it’s not going for the price I hoped. I think players have to be a superstar for years for their cards really to increase that much in value.
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Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. Winning ROTY definitely gives a player more attention, but I don’t think the award itself automatically makes their cards explode. The player still has to prove they’re more than a one- or two-year hype cycle.
Michael Harris is a great example. He won ROTY and has put together a pretty solid career, but the hobby hasn’t treated him like a superstar-level card market.
That’s why I’m rooting for Sal for both reasons. 😂 I genuinely like the player, but I’m also sitting here thinking, “Please keep raking, buddy, I have a card invested in this storyline!” If he turns into a perennial All-Star, then the ROTY becomes a chapter in the story rather than the entire story.
And honestly, that’s probably the bigger lesson with rookie cards: buying the award is one thing, buying the career is another.
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Honestly all of this is partially why I’m shifting some to Pokemon. Well, and focusing on three MLB players I like no matter how they’re playing. I invested too much in too big a variety of players that didn’t really pan out (or haven’t so far). Narrowing my focus has me caring less about what kind of season they’re having. I like these three guys no matter how they’re playing
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Yeah it’s hard to chase for sure. I’m just lucky that one of the big chases is from my team. If Sal was a Cub or something I probably wouldn’t pay him any mind
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It does help when “your” team has one of the guys whose cards are pulling in the bucks. Well, unless you’re a Dodgers fan when they have so MANY of those guys! 😆
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Lol exactly. 😂 Having a guy on your favorite team whose cards are exploding is the best because you get to enjoy the player AND potentially benefit from the hobby hype.
But being a Dodgers collector feels like playing on expert mode. 😂 You’ve got Ohtani, Betts, Yamamoto, Freeman, Glasnow, and now you’re constantly wondering which guy is going to become the next monster in the hobby.
At least with a smaller-market team, you can sometimes get in early before the hobby catches up. The Dodgers just seem to have a cheat code for producing guys people want to collect.
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There really is a lot of luck involved in collecting if you’re hoping for monetary value. A positive is getting a card early on and your player unexpectedly becoming a huge star. Conversely there’s getting in on the ground floor with lots of cards and your player turns out to be on the injured list most of nearly every year with a career cut short and ultimately not HOF as predicted.
That’s why I think the best collecting advice is to collect your team or your player and don’t worry about all of the noise. That’s what I’ve read from several collectors on here. And I agree
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Absolutely. There’s a ton of luck involved when you start treating cards like investments. You can do all the research in the world and still have a guy explode into superstardom… or have injuries completely derail what looked like a sure thing.
That’s why I’ve really come around to the idea of collecting players and teams you genuinely enjoy. If their market takes off, awesome. If it doesn’t, you still have a collection you actually want.
For me, the monetary upside is the bonus. The enjoyment of owning the card has to come first. Otherwise you’re basically betting on a 22-year-old’s career and hoping your crystal ball works.
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