While a Rookie of the Year award sometimes marks the first accolade of a player’s Hall of Fame career, it also sometimes represents a peak.
MLB award season continues this week, with Silver Slugger Award winners being announced Thursday and Friday ahead of several more award announcements through Nov. 13.
Among those will be the National League and American League Rookie of the Year awards, given to the best qualified rookie in each league every year, regardless of position.
In the 26 seasons of baseball we have seen so far in the 21st century, several of the era’s most recognizable players began their careers with a Rookie of the Year award. Players such as Albert Pujols, Ichiro Suzuki, Justin Verlander, Buster Posey, Craig Kimbrel and Mike Trout are among the star players since the dawn of the new millennium to begin their resumes by winning the award.
While a Rookie of the Year winner will typically go on to at least have a serviceable, somewhat memorable MLB career, fans often forget the winners of the award that don’t quite live up to the standard of their rookie season, as well as players who won in a season where no rookie blew fans and writers away.
It’s hard to say that 2025 was one of those seasons, with likely AL Rookie of the Year winner Nick Kurtz of the Athletics amassing one of the most impressive offensive campaigns by a rookie in recent memory, while Cubs pitcher Cade Horton and Braves catcher Drake Baldwin both putting up excellent seasons.
With this year’s winners soon to be announced, here’s a look back at four Rookie of the Year winners since the turn of the century that fans may have forgotten about:
1. Ángel Berroa, SS, 2003 Kansas City Royals
2.5 WAR, 92 R, 163 H, 28 2B, 7 3B, 17 HR, 73 RBI, 21 SB, 29 BB, 100 K, .287/.338/.451/.789
While I can assure you that no New York Yankees fan has forgotten about this as Berroa narrowly edged out Hideki Matsui for the award, Berroa’s win stands out as one of the more random Rookies of the Year of the past 25 years.
Playing for an unremarkable Royals team that quietly finished the season with a winning record at 83-79, Berroa complemented Carlos Beltrán and Mike Sweeney as key pieces in a Kansas City lineup that was sixth in MLB in hits.
Although the Royals clearly were committed to seeing if Berroa could replicate his 2003 production, he was never able to. After putting up 1 WAR with 27 doubles, eight home runs and 14 stolen bases in 2004, Berroa was below replacement level in both 2005 and 2006 with Kansas City, including a ghastly -1.5 WAR in 2006.
Berroa played just nine games with the Royals in 2007 before spending the 2008 season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, playing 84 games while getting the only playoff experience of his big league career. Berroa went on to play 35 games in 2009 split between the New York Yankees and New York Mets.
The former Rookie of the Year stuck around in affiliated ball through the 2011 season and last played professional baseball in Mexico in 2015.
2. Chris Coghlan, LF, 2009 Florida Marlins
1.1 WAR, 84 R, 162 H, 31 2B, 6 3B, 9 HR, 47 RBI, 8 SB, 53 BB, 77 K, .321/.390/.460/.850
While Coghlan wouldn’t produce the best overall season of his career until he was a member of the Chicago Cubs in 2015, his incredible offensive production his rookie year led to a NL Rookie of the Year award and even a 28th-place finish in NL MVP voting.
Though his WAR was dragged down significantly by an awful -2.5 defensive WAR in 2009, Coghlan came right out of the gates as a consistent contact bat for an 87-win Marlins team that remained in playoff contention for much of the season.
Coghlan particularly excelled away from Miami Gardens in 2009, putting up a .926 OPS in road games while having an incredible second half of the season to secure the award. Coghlan hit a sensational .390 in the final month of the season while also posting a 1.030 OPS in August.
Eventually becoming a utility player, Coghlan remained a part-time player for the Marlins through the 2013 season before his career found a second wind on the North Side of Chicago. Coghlan spent all of 2014 and 2015 with the Cubs, returning to the North Side mid-way through the 2016 season in a trade with the Oakland Athletics.
Coghlan last played in MLB as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays in June 2017, retiring from professional baseball after a stint in the Cubs organization in 2018.
3. Michael Fulmer, SP, 2016 Detroit Tigers
5.4 WAR, 11-7, 3.06 ERA, 26 GS, 1 CGSHO, 159 IP, 42 BB, 132 K, 139 ERA+
While Fulmer has been in and out of the big leagues in recent years as a journeyman reliever, he began his career as a promising starter for the Tigers, putting together two great years to begin his career before injuries began to change his trajectory.
The righty was consistent across most major splits, equally effective in and away from Comerica Park while actually trending to be a slight reverse split pitcher, holding lefty hitters to a .621 OPS while right-handers managed a slightly better but still paltry .684 OPS.
Although his second half didn’t derail his season, Fulmer’s first half was clearly more impressive, as he pitched to a 2.11 ERA across 76.2 innings in his first 13 starts before the league began to adjust, with Fulmer producing a 3.94 second half ERA.
Fulmer remained solid in 2017, making the All-Star team while compiling a 4 WAR season with a 10-12 record and 3.83 ERA over 164.2 innings. Since then, Fulmer has missed all of the 2020 and 2024 campaigns, with his best season in the meantime coming in 2021, where he put up a 2.97 ERA and 1.9 WAR in 52 games and four starts with the Tigers.
Fulmer appeared in three games in the 2025 season, pitching once for the Boston Red Sox and twice for the Chicago Cubs before being released. The veteran also spent time in the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Mariners minor league systems this past season.
4. Kyle Lewis, CF, 2020 Seattle Mariners
1.6 WAR, 58 G, 37 R, 54 H, 3 2B, 11 HR, 28 RBI, 5 SB, 34 BB, 71 K, .262/.364/.437/.801
While it kind of feels like cheating to mention the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, the outcome of Kyle Lewis’ career remains so bizarre, regardless of how long the season was.
After debuting in 2019 and putting up solid numbers across 18 games, Lewis emerged as a primary contributor for Seattle in 2020, joining only Kyle Seager and Austin Nola as everyday players with an OPS+ north of 100.
Though overall a replacement-level defender for the year, Lewis showed flashes of elite outfield defense in a time when Julio Rodríguez remained a promising unknown. Following a decent start to the 2021 season, a torn right meniscus appeared to derail Lewis’ career, costing him the remainder of the season with the outfielder struggling to find his footing since.
Lewis was just 8-for-56 at the plate in an 18-game stint with the Mariners in 2022, prompting Seattle to trade him to the Arizona Diamondbacks after the season in exchange for Cooper Hummel. The outfielder then would go just 8-for-51 with a home run in 16 games with the big-league D-Backs in 2023, with Lewis being released at the end of the year.
Still just 30 years old, Lewis has not appeared in a professional baseball game since 2023 and has not announced his retirement.
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