Yes, it's a little early to have a full understanding of the quality of this year's rookie class. Last year, for example, Michael Fulmer didn't make his debut until April 29. Jameson Taillon didn't make his debut until June 8, and Gary Sanchez wasn't playing regularly until August. Rookies emerge every couple of days, and it's not until the end that we'll be able to put the whole rookie class in some context.
With that being said, we do have some early signs, which suggest this year's crop is light on pitching and heavy on bats.
Rookie pitchers to this point have combined for a 125 ERA-, which means they've been 25 percent worse than the league average. That would stand as the worst mark for rookie pitchers in the last 20 years. Meanwhile, rookie hitters have combined for an 89 wRC+, which means they've been 11 percent worse than the league average. That would stand as the second-best mark for rookie hitters in the last 20 years. Through the season's first month, the class has been uneven.
It's fun to think about all the rookies combined, but it's even more fun to consider them individually. What I've done here is attempt to rank all the 2017 rookies who've played fairly regularly. To keep the number of players reasonable, I set a cutoff at 60 plate appearances for hitters and 60 batters faced for pitchers. This does exclude, say, the outstanding Jose Leclerc. Maybe that's not fair, but now Leclerc has his shout-out -- he has been great!
Here are the 21 players who have played enough, and some have been much, much better than others:
1. Aaron Judge, New York Yankees
It is no secret that Judge has Giancarlo Stanton-level raw power. It has always been a matter of being able to tap into it. Last year, Judge didn't do it enough, striking out 44 percent of the time. It is effectively impossible to be successful with that many strikeouts. Well, fast-forward. Stanton, over his career, has struck out in 29 percent of his plate appearances. Judge, in 2017, has struck out in 25 percent of his plate appearances. He's seldom chasing, and he's making more contact, and Judge doesn't have to do much to knock the ball out of the yard. Judge is built like a superhero. He's also starting to play like one.
2. Mitch Haniger, Seattle Mariners
In a way, Haniger has been like Judge, just without the wow factor. Haniger could never dream of possessing Judge's raw strength, but Haniger has enough strength, and he makes even more contact. He changed his swing in 2016, to great effect in the minor leagues, and Haniger carried that over early on, hitting better than any other Mariner while also helping out in the field and on the bases. An oblique strain has knocked Haniger out of the lineup for at least another few weeks. When he returns, his club will be ecstatic.
3. Andrew Benintendi, Boston Red Sox
Here's the crazy thing about this landscape -- Benintendi is batting .330 with an OBP of roughly .400 and is slugging .461, and still he's no better than third place. That speaks to what Judge and Haniger have been able to accomplish, but Benintendi already feels like a natural, still two months shy of his 23rd birthday. Over the weekend, Joe Maddon compared him to Fred Lynn. Benintendi has made contact on 86 percent of his swings, more than eight points higher than the average, and when you blend that with his all-fields strength, you have a hitter who's without any true weakness.
4. Antonio Senzatela, Colorado Rockies
Before the year, Keith Law rated Senzatela the No. 13 prospect in the Rockies' system. He has come along faster than expected. He has walked just seven batters over his first five starts, three of which took place in Colorado. The downside here is that Senzatela hasn't missed many bats, and he has had trouble getting opponents to chase pitches out of the zone. But Senzatela has also stayed in the zone with a fastball averaging 94 mph. In April, the Rockies had to weather an injury storm, and Senzatela is a big reason why the team has hung around first place.
5. Josh Bell, Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pirates have long known they could count on Bell to give them a quality at-bat. At issue was whether Bell would learn to hit for enough power to stick as a regular first baseman. Well, Bell already has more homers in the majors (four) than he did last year (three), in a fraction of the playing time. Related to that, last year, Bell pulled just 22 percent of his batted balls. This year, he has pulled 52 percent of his batted balls. It's easiest to hit for power to the pull side, and this could be Bell's next step.
6. Jordan Montgomery, New York Yankees
Here's one of the reasons why the Yankees have been able to surprise. There are 130 pitchers who have thrown at least 20 innings; Montgomery ranks fifth in lowest contact rate allowed, in between Chris Sale and Danny Salazar. He ranks seventh in highest rate of swings at pitches out of the zone, just behind Sale. Montgomery has thrown a few too many balls to look like a front-of-the-rotation starter, but he's just getting his feet wet. The Yankees have more good young players than you might figure.
7. Manuel Margot, San Diego Padres
Margot hasn't yet achieved offensive consistency, and the front half of his April was better than the back. He still chases too often out of the zone, and given that he's 22 years old, that youthful exuberance can be understood. What helps to make Margot's case is that, all the while, he has been one of the league's better defensive center fielders. As a contributor in the field and on the bases, Margot has had a lower bar to clear at the plate. He has been more good than bad.
8. Amir Garrett, Cincinnati Reds
Although Garrett has allowed 16 runs in five starts, one should note 10 of those came in one start. In the start before that, he finished with a walk and 12 strikeouts. So the early overall numbers don't completely reflect what Garrett has been for a Reds rotation in need of reinforcements. Garrett has done everything more or less like an average starting pitcher, and that might read like criticism. That's not how it's intended, because an average starting pitcher holds tremendous value.
9. Kyle Freeland, Colorado Rockies
Another sudden emergence, Freeland was Keith Law's No. 6 Rockies prospect before the season. He certainly hasn't been a swing-and-miss pitcher, nor has he been a pound-the-zone pitcher. No, Freeland's game has been the ground ball. Out of all 130 pitchers with at least 20 innings, Freeland has the highest ground-ball rate, at 66 percent. When hitters can't lift the ball, they can't do easy damage, so Freeland makes them work for every run.
10. Robert Gsellman, New York Mets
Gsellman is one of those quick-rising Mets starters, and last year he had an encouraging debut. The good news is that this year he's still throwing pretty hard, and he's still picking up some strikeouts. Yet Gsellman's ERA has ballooned, and he has allowed 25 total runs in just 26⅔ innings. He's allowing more contact, and he hasn't even yet faced a good lineup. The stuff is better than the results, at least.
11. Yandy Diaz, Cleveland Indians
Diaz filled in while Jason Kipnis was hurt, and by the results, it could've gone better. Out of Diaz's average, on-base and slugging, not one of those numbers was above .300. One of the biggest issues was that Diaz hit more than three of every five batted balls on the ground. More encouragingly, Diaz at least consistently hit the ball hard, even when he got out, and he played adequate defense. When Diaz returns to the majors, expect the results to improve substantially.
12. Jharel Cotton, Oakland Athletics
Cotton loves his changeup. Everyone loves his changeup. It's one of baseball's better changeups, and that's the pitch that has gotten Cotton to the major leagues. But Cotton hasn't yet done enough with the A's, overall. Cotton started five games in 2016, and he has started five games in 2017. He has four fewer strikeouts now, and eight more walks. The ability is there, but the performance hasn't been. While hopes remain high, Cotton needs to be sharper.
13. Hunter Renfroe, San Diego Padres
Speaking of players who need to be sharper, Renfroe had two walks and 28 strikeouts entering May. (He has 31 now.) I don't care who you are, that's never going to be good enough. Renfroe is chasing too much and missing too much, and that's what was always going to hold him back, because the power is legitimate. Renfroe isn't far from the contact line he needs to reach. With just a little more controlled aggressiveness, this can work. It's just not clicking yet.
14. Austin Pruitt, Tampa Bay Rays
I like Pruitt, and he was quietly an outstanding starter last year in Triple-A. The Rays are using him as a long reliever, and he has thrown a fine number of pitches for strikes. He has missed a better-than-average number of bats. But still, it's hard to look past an ERA of 5.71. In Pruitt's first 5⅔ innings, he allowed a seemingly impossible 20 hits, and it'll take a while for his numbers to recover. I think they will; they just haven't yet.
15. Frankie Montas, Oakland Athletics
Montas has always been about the big fastball. He's still pumping the fastball in the mid- to upper-90s, and he pairs it with a sharp slider. Montas so far has thrown plenty of first-pitch strikes, and he has prevented opposing hitters from making consistent contact. He has had more trouble putting guys away, and you could say his control is ahead of his command. It's a deep Oakland bullpen. Montas will have to work to climb the ladder.
16. Josh Smoker, New York Mets
In Smoker's 2016 cup of coffee, he looked awfully good, striking out 39 percent of his opponents while throwing 95. Smoker's still throwing 95, but his whiffs have gone down and his walks have gone up, and he has already allowed three home runs. There's no good reason why Smoker would be too hittable. And even while struggling, Smoker has generated plenty of whiffs. But he needs to do better about getting strike one. With him, though, the Mets can be fairly patient.
17. Ty Blach, San Francisco Giants
Here's the thing: I see the sub-3 ERA. Everyone loves a sub-3 ERA. But Blach has faced 69 batters, and he has struck out just five of them and walked six. And he's not even a ground-ball pitcher. What's the significance of his having just five strikeouts? In his second start of the season, Jered Weaver picked up five strikeouts. Blach cannot keep this up. He can't keep allowing contact on 90 percent of swings taken against him. He has to find whiffs, or it's going to come apart.
18. Tyler Glasnow, Pittsburgh Pirates
In his first four starts this year, Glasnow had yet to turn in a good one. (He finally got his first win on May 2 against the Reds.) The first time out, he walked five and struck out one in 1⅔ innings. The next time out, he allowed six runs in five innings. Then he failed to last five innings, then he failed to last four innings. Glasnow worked on his mechanics over the offseason in the hopes of finding location. The powerful stuff is still there. But Glasnow has lost strikes and whiffs in the early going, which is a sure-fire way to put up awful numbers. One day, it might just suddenly click. It certainly hasn't clicked yet.
19. Dansby Swanson, Atlanta Braves
At this writing, on FanGraphs, Swanson ranks among the league's worst players in Wins Above Replacement. The good news is that he's not alone, and there's some talent in there -- Albert Pujols, Curtis Granderson, Victor Martinez and so on. Many of those players will bounce back, and Swanson should be no exception. But on the heels of a steady and promising 2016 debut, it was a terrible opening month. I don't see anything here being irreparably broken. I just can't in good conscience rate Swanson's start any higher than this.
20. Dylan Covey, Chicago White Sox
The White Sox have been surprisingly good out of the chute, hanging in there with the Indians. I don't think anybody saw that coming, least of all the White Sox, who have made room for Rule 5 draft pick Covey in their rotation. Because of Covey's acquisition status, he deserves a better look than four starts. And the White Sox can give Covey the time he needs, because they're not actually trying to win in 2017. But Covey has more walks than strikeouts so far. He hasn't been hard to square up. There's better pitching coming in the White Sox organization, and odds are, Covey won't survive a lot longer in his present role.
21. Casey Lawrence, Toronto Blue Jays
There are 273 pitchers who have thrown at least 10 innings. By K-BB percentage, which simply subtracts walk rate from strikeout rate, Lawrence ranks second from the bottom, ahead of only Andrew Cashner. That's a bad place to be, and although Lawrence is a 29-year-old rookie, there's a reason he's already back in the minors. Coming in, there were questions about the Blue Jays' pitching depth, and Lawrence didn't help answer any of them.