CINCINNATI -- There aren't too many things that are slow when it comes to Billy Hamilton but a slow September cost him the National League Rookie of the Year award.
New York Mets starting pitcher Jacob deGrom won the award, announced Monday night by the Baseball Writers Association of America. deGrom received 26 of the 30 first-place votes and totaled 142 points in the balloting, while Hamilton came in second place with four first-place votes and 92 points. St. Louis second baseman Kolten Wong was third.
deGrom went 9-6 with 2.69 ERA with 144 strikeouts in 140 1/3 innings this season, including going 3-0 with a 1.32 ERA in five September starts.
Hamilton led all NL rookies in RBI, multi-hit games, runs, hits, total bases, doubles, stolen bases and extra-base hits. His 56 steals set a franchise record for rookies and he is now just one of five rookies since 1900 ever to produce at least 141 hits, 25 doubles, 8 triples, 72 runs and 56 stolen bases in a season. The others are: Ichiro Suzuki 2001, Tony Womack 1997, Juan Samuel 1984 and Benny Kauff 1914.
The Reds have had seven Rookie of Year award winners in their history: Frank Robinson (1956), Pete Rose (1963), Tommy Helms (1966), Johnny Bench (1968), Pat Zachry (1976), Chris Sabo (1988) and Scott Williamson (1999).
Hamilton appeared to be the favorite to become the eighth member of that group before the final month of the season began. He was hitting .267 with an on-base percentage of .302 and slugging percentage of .382 through Aug. 31 but he hit just .123 with an on-base percentage of .219 the rest of the season. His defense didn't suffer despite his problems at the plate. Hamilton had the best fielding percentage of all NL center fielders (.994) and led the position group with 10 outfield assists. He was a NL Gold Glove finalist but that wasn't enough to overcome September.
Hamilton had a discernable positive impact on the Reds when he was going well. He played in 69 of their 76 wins and hit .319 with an on-base percentage of .360 and slugging percentage of .423. He was the only one of the top three vote-getters to play the entire season at the major league level. deGrom didn't make his debut until May 15, while Wong was sent back to Triple-A for a month in late April.
One category Hamilton will look to improve upon next season is his efficiency in stealing bases. While he was second in the NL with 56 steals, he led all of MLB by being caught 23 times.
