Reds star Sal Stewart is starting to separate himself in NL Rookie of the Year race

The battle for the 2026 NL Rookie of the Year Award has been a two-race race ever since Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Konnor Griffin landed on the injured list. Either Cincinnati Reds' All-Star Sal Stewart or St. Louis Cardinals second baseman JJ Wetherholt will take home the honors this season.

But once the calendar flipped to July, Stewart has begun to create some separation between himself and Wetherholt. If Stewart's offensive onslaught continues over the final two months of the season, the NL Rookie of the Year trophy (Jackie Robinson Award) will almost assuredly be coming back to Cincinnati.

Reds rookie Sal Stewart is beginning to distance himself from Cardinals infielder JJ Wetherholt

Cardinals fans continually point to one statistic — WAR — as the biggest reason why Wetherholt should be the odds-on favorite to win the NL Rookie of the Year Award this season. And while it's true that the St. Louis rookie holds the edge in both bWAR (4.2 to 1.7) and fWAR (4.0 to 1.9), that's about the only statistical category in which Wetherholt has the advantage.

Stewart leads Wetherholt in hits, home runs, batting average, and OPS. The Reds rookie has more than twice as many RBI (85 to 41) and his slugging percentage (.479) is nearly 100 points higher than the Cardinals' second baseman (.738).

It seems that a number of experts throughout Major League Baseball are beginning to catch on as well. A recent poll from MLB.com revealed a dead-heat between Stewart and Wetherholt. A group of 30 beat writers ranked their top-5 picks for NL Rookie of the Year, and both Stewart and Wetherholt received identical scores.

The gap has narrowed thanks in large part to how well Stewart has played over the last month of the season. Since July 1, the Reds first baseman is hitting .248/.314/.514 with eight home runs, 27 RBI, and a 114 wRC+. During that same span, Wetherholt owns a .211/.323/.333 slash line with four homers, seven RBI, and a 90 wRC+.

With the dog days of summer upon us, it'll be a sprint to the finish. The two teams will meet five more times before the end of the year, with the Cardinals paying a visit to Cincinnati later this month. The five-game series (which includes a makeup doubleheader) could help push the voters in one direction or the other.

If Stewart finishes the season with 30-plus homers and 100-plus RBI, it'll be the 10th time in MLB history that a rookie has achieved such a feat. Eight of those 10 times, the player who attained that achievement took home Rookie of the Year honors.

The only two players who who didn't receive the award produced such a performance before 1947 — the first year the award was handed out — and one of those players was Hall of Famer Ted Williams.

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