4 Early Contenders For 2025 MLB Rookie Of The Year
Image credit: (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)
After Paul Skenes and Luis Gil picked up 2024 Rookie of the Year honors, it’s sensible to look ahead to the 2025 race as we approach the apex of prospect-ranking season. Let’s dive into four rookie-eligible players who debuted in 2024 and could contend for 2025 MLB Rookie of the Year next season.
Dylan Crews, OF, Nationals
Fair or not, Crews and Wyatt Langford will always be linked together. While Langford still has the upper hand offensively based on a September surge with the Rangers, the gap in their perceived values has closed since last year.
Crews, the No. 2 overall pick in 2023, has yet to dominate at the plate since leaving the lower minors. He reached the majors at 22 years old and posted an 80 wRC+ with above-average defense and baserunning. For most of September, he batted first or second in Washington’s lineup.
Crews’ 12 stolen bases stand out from his time in the majors. Only five players swiped more than him from his Aug. 26 debut through the end of the season.
Per Statcast’s defensive metrics, which you should view skeptically given the sample, Crews displayed a plus arm with above-average range. This matches up with our scouting report for his 2025 prospect profile:
“In the outfield, Crews is a solid defender who makes plays look easy. He played a majority of center field in the minors but moved to right field after his callup to Washington.”
Crews’ performance at the plate was unspectacular, but that should be the expectation for first-time big leaguers in 2024.
Using Robert Orr’s metrics, Crews ranked in the 84th percentile when making contact inside the zone. He had a 70th-percentile “SEAGER” metric, which measures swing decisions. He also was well above-average in 90th percentile exit velocity. This combination of skills shows that Crews makes contact, makes wise swing decisions and has enough power to play with.
His underlying numbers showed no major red flags, even in a sample that saw him perform 20% worse than the league average. Crews’ issue with the Nationals was an elevated groundball rate, which illustrates why his performance didn’t translate to surface-level stats. His 45% hard-hit rate was impressive, but he didn’t hit the ball in the air enough. Whether or not he can consistently do so with authority despite his 5-foot-11, 203-pound frame will determine his ceiling as a hitter.
Crews is one of the clear-cut favorites for 2025 National League Rookie of the Year honors, particularly when factoring in projected playing time.
Jasson Domínguez, OF, Yankees
It’s easy to forget how loud Domínguez’s debut was in September 2023. The Yankees weren’t relevant then, but Dominguez was, homering off Justin Verlander in his first MLB at-bat:
The Yankees reached the World Series this past fall. While Dominguez was on the roster, he wasn’t much of a postseason factor, which was surprising even considering his return from elbow surgery. Based on what he had shown in 2023 and his prospect pedigree, the belief entering 2024 was that he’d contribute in the second half. Instead, New York believes his late start to the season while recovering from Tommy John surgery and an oblique strain at Triple-A impacted his performance.
Over the past two years in the minors, Domínguez has hit .282/.377/.452 with a 23% strikeout rate and a 13% walk rate. In the majors, with a far smaller sample, Domínguez hit .207/.310/.437 with a 27% strikeout rate and a 13% walk rate.
His plate discipline has been steady from level to level, but what about his batted-ball results? In his brief time with the Yankees in 2024, Domínguez posted a 62% groundball rate, which would’ve led MLB among hitters with at least 250 plate appearances (Domínguez had 67). Encouragingly, his grounder rate over the past two years has primarily hovered in the mid 40s.
It’s also encouraging that Domínguez posted a well above-average barrel% and a 46% hard-hit rate. Most of his MLB batted balls were driven into the dirt, but at least he did it with some oomph.
Since grounders weren’t a problem in the minors — even this season — it’s fair to treat them as a blip on the radar. Domínguez showed his major league upside in 2023, and 2024 can be viewed as his transition stage to the majors — the same one that eventual rookie stars like Jackson Chourio and Jackson Merrill had to go through.
As we wrote in his 2024 scouting report, Domínguez’s “combination of plate discipline, contact, and power could make him at least an above-average hitter with potentially plus power.” Those skills remain in place entering his age-22 campaign, even if prospect fatigue set in quite some time ago.
Rhett Lowder, RHP, Reds
A 1.17 ERA in 30.2 innings — how soon can we get our predictions in? Unfortunately for Lowder and the Reds, his underlying MLB results left more to be desired:
The primary culprit for this discrepancy was a minuscule 6.3 K-BB%, far below Lowder’s 19.9% mark in the minors—his first pro action since the Reds drafted him No. 7 overall in 2023.
Lowder’s 2025 scouting report mentions that he “lacks a true out pitch.” Here’s more from our recent report:
“Nothing Lowder throws has exceptional movement or velocity, but his ability to avoid the middle of the zone, change hitters’ eye levels with four-seamers and work in the bottom third of the zone with three pitches frustrates hitters.”
Taking a model-based look at Lowder’s arsenal paints a similar story. The below graphic is via Eno Sarris’ Stuff+ model:
Lowder didn’t generate as many groundballs with the Reds as he had in the minors, and that will be important to do moving forward, considering he plays his home games in Great American Ballpark.
Ultimately, his pitchability traits may help him outperform his ERA estimators more often than not. Still, the absence of an arsenal-defining pitch will remain a concern until a track record is established.
Kumar Rocker, RHP, Rangers
Rocker, who just turned 25, only made three major league starts last season.
They were eventful outings, however, considering his fame as an amateur player and the winding road he eventually took to the big leagues.
Rocker returned from Tommy John surgery this past summer and made seven starts between Double-A and Triple-A. He registered a 0.91 ERA with a 0.57 WHIP and 47 strikeouts in 29.2 innings pitched, appearing as dominant as he’d been since his Vanderbilt days.
Then he struck out seven Mariners across four frames in his major league debut:
Over his three starts with the Rangers, Rocker’s four-seamer averaged 96 mph, while his slider generated an impressive 50% whiff rate.
His offerings didn’t impress Sarris’ Stuff+ model, though Lance Brozdowski thinks Rocker’s delivery might possess some deceptive qualities that help his arsenal perform well.
In that linked video, Brozdowski says Rocker’s slider had a 79% whiff rate during his brief time at Triple-A. That’s silly, and his ability to pile up swings and misses with the pitch has already translated to the majors. It’s curious why Stuff+ models don’t like the pitch, but it’s possibly a classification issue due to outlier traits.
Meanwhile, Rocker’s four-seamer was expected to be a “dead zone” fastball, and we saw that. The letdown was that he wasn’t throwing harder, like Paul Skenes’ dead-zone heater. The absence of ideal shape isn’t a deal-breaker for fastballs, but velocity is what helps offset that. Rocker might’ve been holding back some as he was still post-TJ, but the hope is he’ll be throwing harder in the spring. Manager Bruce Bochy said at the end of the season that Rocker “will enter Spring Training fully primed to compete for a spot in the rotation.”
