IMO, both Acuna and Ohtani were the pre-season favorites to win this award. They both clearly benefited from the plethora of hype they began receiving back in spring training.
Soto (once finally called up a month or so after Acuna) had significant hype surrounding him as did Gleyber Torres. In July, my bet on AL ROY would have been Torres after coming off the DL and being selected for the AS game following his torrid start.
Andujar, who received far less hype than the other four, at the start of the season was 3rd on the NYY depth chart at 3rd base. So with little to no hype most of the season he came out of no where and put up a great season.
I get that Andujar received no where near the same hype as the others and he didn't have an intriguing story so lacking in both intangibles clearly worked against him in regards to winning the ROY, but he had a great rookie season ....
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