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Dellin Betances very well could, at a few minutes after 6 p.m. Bronx Time, post the highest finish ever in the Rookie of the Year voting for a middle reliever.

He won’t win. Jose Abreu will win and very well could receive all 30 of the American League’s first-place votes to join Mike Trout and Evan Longoria as the only unanimous AL MVPs since the Jeter-and-Nomar back-to-backs of the mid-1990s.

We do know that with his being announced a finalist, though, that he’ll at least finish third, and just finishing third would match the best ever finishes by a reliever who wasn’t a closer. It’s been 10 years since any middle relievers stood out enough to reach the podium with Akinori Otsuka finishing third for the 2004 Padres. Jeff Zimmerman of the Rangers was third in 1999, and that’s it. The rest of the relievers to finish top three – and there have been plenty – were either closers or pitched early enough in the game’s evolution that they often finished games just because there were no roles.

If Betances can beat out Matt Shoemaker, who isn’t exactly the most deserving top-three candidate you could find in the AL pool this year, he’ll be the first ever to finish that high.

There are a few reasons that his kind—the kind that recorded 231 of his 270 outs in the sixth, seventh or eighth innings—don’t typically get this type of recognition. It starts with a lack of preseason hype, of course. Betances was nowhere to be found on any of the 37 voting Baseball Prospectus staffers’ preseason ballots for this award. But that’s something that rookies can overcome.

It mostly comes down to three things.

1. The traditionalist voting element, the one that’s left its imprint on the last couple of American League MVP awards and the one that presumably voted up 16-win Matt Shoemaker over Collin McHugh and Masahiro Tanaka, needs to recognize a player without saves. That’s probably the easy one, especially when you’re recording half of your outs on strikeouts. That was impressive long before DIPS theory came around (although I guess it never really happened before DIPS theory came around.)

2. Meanwhile the more analytically inclined portion of the electorate, which is becoming larger on the seasonal awards where there is no 10-year waiting period, needs to justify voting for a relief pitcher. On WAR(P) alone, Betances was not a top-3 player no matter whose metrics you use.

Baseball Prospectus WARP

Baseball-Reference WAR

Fangraphs WAR

Jose Abreu 5.5

Jose Abreu 5.5

Jose Abreu 5.3

Kevin Kiermaier 2.8

Collin McHugh 4.2

Kevin Kiermaier 3.8

Collin McHugh 2.7

Danny Santana 3.9

Collin McHugh 3.3

Dellin Betances 2.6

Dellin Betances 3.7

Marcus Stroman 3.3

Dellin Betances 3.2

Masahiro Tanaka 3.2

Danny Santana 3.2

19. Matt Shoemaker 1.3

8. Matt Shoemaker 2.5

t-11. Matt Shoemaker 2.1

There’s a case to be made, though, for crediting up the higher leverage innings if you want to make that case, but the advanced metrics will rarely present a strong case for a reliever.

3. And by far the most difficult: There is a huge survivorship issue. Betances will be (at least tied for) the highest finish ever by a middle reliever, but there are plenty of other names on the ballots over the modern bullpen usage era that started the season as middle relievers and graduated to closer either on their own dominance or by circumstance. This of course helped them get on the ballot, so it isn’t just a technicality, but several others may have been able to get close to the same recognition if their closers had held on.

Even on the heels of Betances striking out 135 out of the 270 batters he retired—I’d give him Rookie of the Year just for making the math easy on us—and allowing 15 runs for a 1.40 ERA and a 1.67 FIP, the Yankees still extended a qualifying offer to David Robertson last week.

Just an hour before the order of finish is announced tonight, Robertson faces a deadline to decide whether he’s going to accept the offer. On a lower payroll team, Robertson would have never even been eligible for a qualifying offer, must less received one. He would have been gone before July 31, and Betances would have been the closer.

Obviously, the Yankees can spend, but especially with relievers, there’s no guarantee that this rookie success carries over into a viable long-term replacement. The list of top-three Rookie of the Year finishers who were relievers has great success stories amid those who flamed out quickly and those whose arms just couldn’t hold out much longer.

2011: Craig Kimbrel 1st
2010: Neftali Feliz 1st
2009: Andrew Bailey 1st
2006: Jonathan Papelbon 2nd
2005: Huston Street 1st
**2004: Akinori Otsuka 3rd
2002: Jorge Julio 3rd
2000: Kazuhiro Sasaki 1st
1999: Scott Williamson 1st
**1999: Jeff Zimmerman 3rd
1994: John Hudek 2nd
1993: Greg McMichael 2nd
1989: Gregg Olson 1st
1988: Bryan Harvey 2nd
1986: Todd Worrell 1st
1986: Mark Eichhorn 3rd
1980: Steve Howe 1st
1980: Doug Corbett 3rd
1979: Mark Clear 3rd
1976: Butch Metzger 1st
1975: Rawly Eastwick 3rd
1973: Elias Sosa 3rd
1965: Frank Linzy 3rd
1962: Dick Radatz 3rd
1958: Ryne Duren 2nd
1952: Joe Black 1st
1952: Hoyt Wilhelm 2nd

Despite the small sample, it’s no coincidence that of the last 10 relievers to hit the podium, six have occupied the top step. Being a reliever is something that’s relatively easy to be great at early in one’s career, and it’s an easy thing to get a shot at early as well. Usually, that combination means a quick ascent to closer, but we’ll find out a lot today about the speed of Betances’ ascent.

Thank you for reading

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TeamPineTar
11/10
"...as the only unanimous AL MVPs ..." RoYs?
andrewmearns
11/10
It's sure been fun watching Dellin's ascent this year, and while he's an anomaly in terms of RoY voting, he's certainly worthy of a Top 3 finish. Dellin was just so dominant that writers just couldn't look away from him. Similarly, I'll bet that if Mariano Rivera hadn't pitched enough innings in 1995 to disqualify himself from 1996 RoY consideration, it would have been a tight race between him and Jeter for the award. Hell, it was enough for him to finish 3rd in AL Cy Young voting, which is just crazy to think about for a non-closer.

Now for something completely different: I love that Rawly Eastwick is on this list because it reminds me of one of my favorite forgotten trade storise. Prior to 1978, George Steinbrenner had the Yankees sign him to a five-year, $1.1 million contract. Billy Martin wanted nothing to do with him, and by mid-June, he had only pitched eight games. So the Yankees traded him on June 15th. Can you imagine a team today trading a player barely half a year into such a long contract? (Well... maybe the Marlins.)
andrewmearns
11/10
Bah. *stories.
huztlers
11/10
You forgot #4. Plays in NY. If he was a great middle reliever in SD he wouldn't receive a vote.
oldbopper
11/11
Living in the New York market, despite being a lifelong dyed in the wool Red Sox fan, I have been hearing about the "Killer B'S" for all too long. It was fun to laugh at Brockman, a complete bust, Banuelos, injured and still a long, long way from anywhere and Betances, who couldn't find the ocean from a rowboat for most of his career. I guess that it is possible for 6'8" guys to eventually find enough coordination to put it all together, even though it never seemed that Betances would. He has to be given a lot of credit. He made a lot of right handed hitters do a John Kruk impersonation with his slider this year.