Best MLB rookie seasons: How Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shota Imanaga starts in 2024 compare to baseball history

The Baseball Writers Association of America won't hand out hardware just one month into the season. But if they did, there's a good chance the National League Rookie of the Year Award would come down to a trio of pitchers.

Cubs southpaw Shota Imanaga, Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Pirates righty Jared Jones are off to blazing starts to the 2024 season. Imanaga has the lowest ERA among all qualified starting pitchers at 1.08. Yamamoto has a sterling 2.79 ERA and is second among rookies with 42 innings. Jones has a 2.63 ERA with a 30.5% strikeout-to-walk rate that leads all rookie starting pitchers.

Yes, it's early in the season, and a handful of rough starts could knock those pitchers off their course. But if these rookies can continue their hot starts, they could land among the best rookie seasons in MLB history.

Which players had the best rookie seasons in baseball? Here's what you need to know.

MORE: Inside Shohei Ohtani's red-hot start to 2024 season

Top rookie seasons for pitchers

Imanaga, Yamamoto and Jones are off to strong starts. But to reach the top-20 for Baseball Reference Wins Above Replacement (bWAR), they all have a long way to go.

Imanaga has 2.1 bWAR, Jones sits at 1.3 and Yamamoto is at 0.9. In the history of the integration era, which dates back to 1947, Tigers righty Mark Fidrych, who debuted in 1976, had the highest bWAR among rookie pitchers at 9.6, according to Stathead. He finished second in Cy Young voting.

No rookie starting pitcher has really been close to Fidrych's bWAR in the integration era. In the 2000s, the closest is Marlins right-hander Jose Fernandez, who had 6.2 bWAR in his sensational 2013 season.

Imanaga has 2.1 bWAR in just seven starts. Based on that, he is averaging 0.3 bWAR per start, which would put him on pace for 9.0 bWAR in a season with at least 30 starts. But that also would require him to stay on the same pace, and he would still end up 0.6 bWAR behind Fidrych. Yamamoto and Jones are farther behind, though all three players could reach the top-20 depending on how they perform the rest of the way. 

Top rookie seasons for batters

There's more than just pitchers competing for the Rookie of the Year, even if the pitchers are the frontrunners at the beginning of May.

Red Sox outfielder Wilyer Abreu leads all position player rookies with 1.5 bWAR in 2024, while Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn is second overall and leads all National League position player rookies with 1.4 bWAR. Rookie Giants outfielder Jung Hoo Lee is off to a slower start, with just a 0.3 bWAR, though his advanced stats suggest he's been unlucky to start his career. 

How far do they have to go to have a historically great rookie seasons among batters? Even farther than Imanaga.

Here's a look at the best rookie seasons by bWAR in the integration era, per Stathead.

Trout finished with a sensational 10.5 bWAR, which led the majors in 2012. If not for Miguel Cabrera winning the Triple Crown, it's possible Trout would have won the MVP in his rookie campaign.

Since Trout's season, Aaron Judge's 8.0 bWAR in 2017 is the closest. If Abreu played all 162 games at his current bWAR per game clip, he'd reach 8.1 bWAR. Winn could also find himself among the top-20 rookie hitters at the end of the season based on his tremendous defense. Lee would need to drastically turn things around to post a top-20 rookie season. While he should be better, he would really need to perform at an elite level moving forward to rank in the top-20.

Rookie of the Year winners

The first two Rookies of the Year were given to just one player each year, regardless of league. Jackie Robinson won in 1947 and Al Dark won in 1968.

Here's a look at all the Rookie of the Year winners in MLB history.

Major League Baseball

American League

National League