Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani might be the headline performers of the season, but this year's rookie class is the best in decades, boasting seasons of 4.8 to 5.1 fWAR by Julio Rodriguez, Adley Rutschman, Spencer Strider and Michael Harris II.
Any of those seasons would've been the best rookie performance since Judge in 2017; meanwhile, Strider has posted the most rookie pitcher WAR since Hideo Nomo's magical 1995 season. The last season with two rookies having WAR of 4.8 or higher was 2001, when Albert Pujols (7.2 WAR) and Ichiro Suzuki (6.0) took the league by storm.
Even better, eight of the top nine rookies by WAR this year will be in the playoffs, with the only exception Rutschman, whose Baltimore Orioles will finish at least .500. That could be a sign to noncompetitive teams to call up their best young talent as soon as possible.
Here's my ranking of the top 10 rookies who will be in the upcoming postseason, based on the impact I think they'll make in October.
1. Julio Rodriguez, CF, Seattle Mariners
Rodriguez's power and speed combination is one of the best in the league: He's in the top 2% for maximum exit velocity and top 3% for sprint speed, per Baseball Savant.
