Pirates fans need to stop pretending Konnor Griffin was robbed of Rookie of the Year recognition

Look, I get it. We're Pittsburgh Pirates fans. We're not exactly accustomed to having young, exciting position players worth celebrating, so when someone like Konnor Griffin comes along, it's natural to want the rest of baseball to recognize just how special he is.

But can we please be serious for a second?

If you're genuinely upset that Griffin wasn't named a finalist for the 2026 National League Rookie of the Year Award, I'm going to need you to take off the black-and-gold-colored glasses.

Griffin is an extraordinary young talent. He's arguably the most exciting position player the Pirates have developed in years, and his future could be absolutely spectacular. That doesn't mean he deserved to be a Rookie of the Year finalist. And it certainly doesn't mean Sal Stewart was undeserving of the award.

Let's start with the argument that seems to be fueling some of the frustration: Griffin finished with 2.1 bWAR, slightly ahead of Stewart's 2.0. Are we seriously going to treat one-tenth of a win in an estimated value metric as definitive proof that the voters got it wrong?

WAR is an incredibly useful statistic, but it isn't a scoreboard. It incorporates positional adjustments, defensive value and other factors that help explain why Griffin, a premium defensive shortstop, could accumulate similar value to Stewart, a bat-first corner infielder, despite playing significantly fewer games. It doesn't automatically mean Griffin had the more deserving Rookie of the Year campaign.

There's also the not-so-small matter of playing time. Griffin appeared in just 80 games for Pittsburgh in 2026, batting .272/.324/.404 with six home runs, 33 RBI and 23 stolen bases. Injuries, including a torn tendon in his left ring finger, prevented him from putting together a full rookie season.

Meanwhile, Stewart played all 162 games for Cincinnati, hitting .263/.330/.457 with 32 home runs and 112 RBI. He became the first rookie in Reds franchise history to record a 30-homer, 100-RBI season. He was an All-Star. He led all National League rookies in home runs, RBI, extra-base hits and total bases.

Was Stewart the most complete player in the rookie class? Probably not. His defensive limitations are real, and there's a legitimate statistical argument that Carson Benge or JJ Wetherholt deserved the award instead. But that's an entirely different conversation from suggesting Griffin was robbed of a finalist spot.

In fact, Griffin didn't receive a single top-five vote in the final balloting. Stewart received 20 first-place votes and was the only National League rookie named on every ballot. This wasn't some outrageous oversight of an obvious contender.

Pirates fans should be celebrating Griffin's future, not manufacturing a snub

Here's the thing: I would absolutely rather have Griffin on the Pirates' roster for the next decade than Stewart.

That's not a knock on Stewart. It's an acknowledgment of Griffin's extraordinary ceiling, his athleticism, his defensive potential and everything he could become as he continues developing.

But Rookie of the Year isn't an award for the player with the brightest future. It's an award for what a player accomplished during a particular season. And in 2026, Stewart accomplished more.

Could Griffin have made a legitimate run at the award if he'd stayed healthy? Absolutely. He was already generating Rookie of the Year buzz before his injuries derailed his season, and there's every reason to believe his numbers could have improved with more playing time. But at the end of the day, we're not awarding trophies based on what actually happened.

As Pirates fans, we have plenty of legitimate reasons to be frustrated with this organization. We don't need to manufacture another grievance simply because one of our favorite players didn't receive an award he realistically wasn't going to win.

And frankly, turning Griffin's omission into a controversy does a disservice to what should be a genuinely encouraging takeaway from his rookie campaign. He debuted in the majors at 19 years old, demonstrated that he can compete at the highest level and showed flashes of the five-tool superstar Pittsburgh desperately needs. None of that becomes less impressive because he wasn't a Rookie of the Year finalist.

Griffin doesn't need an individual award to validate his potential, and Pirates fans shouldn't need one to appreciate him. Sal Stewart deserved his recognition. Konnor Griffin has an incredibly bright future. Both things can be true. Sometimes, supporting your team means acknowledging that someone on another team simply had the better season.

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