Yasiel Puig, Hyun-jin Ryu named to Baseball America All-Rookie team

Two big reasons for the Dodgers success this year were rewarded on Monday, as first-year players Yasiel Puig and Hyun-jin Ryu made the 2013 All-Rookie Team at Baseball America.

In a likely preview of the results of the BBWAA Rookie of the Year Award results, Marlins right-hander Jose Fernandez captured the top rookie honors from Baseball America. The last Dodger to win the award was Hideo Nomo in 1995.

Puig hit .319/.391/.534 with 19 home runs and 21 doubles in 104 games, and might have given a Fernandez a run for his money over a full season. Puig also hit .333/.366/.410 in 10 playoff games. He won Rookie of the Month and Player of the Month honors in June, hitting .436/.467/.713 with seven home runs in his very first month in the big leagues. But as Matt Eddy wrote, adjustments were key after that:Pitchers succeeded in expanding Puig’s strike zone early in the year, but he stabilized his hitting approach in August and September, batting .273/.373/.487 with 21 extra-base hits in 54 games and a workable 24-to-46 walk-to-strikeout ratio.

Ryu lived up to expectations and then some for the Dodgers in 2013, going 14-8 with a 3.00 ERA in 30 starts, with 154 strikeouts and 49 walks in 192 innings. Including the postseason, Ryu walked 12 batters in his final 14 starts, with 66 strikeouts during that span.

Ryu, 26, led rookies in innings pitched, but his most impressive stat might have gone unnoticed. Per Eddy:Opponents succeeded on only one of three steal attempts despite Ryu’s heavy diet of changeups 22 percent of the time, sliders 14 and curves 10.

via Yasiel Puig, Hyun-jin Ryu named to Baseball America All-Rookie team – True Blue LA.