The Baseball Writers’ Association of America voted Carlos Correa the American League Rookie of the Year.
Correa hit .279, belted 22 home runs, and drove in 68 runners in only 99 games played. Correa helped the Astros play in the postseason for the first time since 2005, when the franchise competed in the National League. Drafted first at 17 years of age in the 2012 draft, his ascension to the majors culminated a multiyear rebuilding process for a Houston club that spent several seasons among the worst in baseball.
Correa became just the second Houston Astro to win the award. First baseman Jeff Bagwell received the nod in 1991.
A few weeks after his 21st birthday the Astros defeated the New York Yankees in the one-game wildcard and Correa drank beer for the first time. He reflected, “It tastes bad.”
A Sports Illustrated profile noted that the youngster owns C3PO sneakers, lives in an apartment overlooking his workplace, boasts fifteen fedoras, and avoids any semblance of a nightlife. Ben Reiter wrote: “In many ways, Correa’s story is the archetypal one of a golden boy whose gifts carried him from modest beginnings—he spent a teenage summer helping his father build parts of their house in Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico, cinder block by cinder block—to, literally, a penthouse.”
The Houston Astros shortstop edged Cleveland Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor, who grabbed 13 first-place votes to Correa’s 17. Miguel Sano of the Twins, Roberto Osuna of the Blue Jays, Billy Burns of the Athletics, Eddie Rosario of the Twins, and second-generation major leaguer Delino DeShields of the Texas Rangers also registered votes, albeit none of the first-place variety, in the process.
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