Why the World Series made us think of the 2024 Cincinnati Reds and rookies | Press Box Wag

After watching the National League’s presumptive Rookie of the Year winner, Corbin Carroll, steal much of the show — not to mention five postseason bases — during the Arizona Diamondbacks’ World Series run, what are the chances the Cincinnati Reds can pull off a version of something similar next year?

It’s already crossed the mind of one young Reds player — even before this year’s playoffs began.

“The goal is to get to the World Series, and then get everything that comes with that,” said Reds infielder Noelvi Marte.

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Everything that comes with that postseason vision might well be the Reds’ second Rookie of the Year award in four seasons, considering Marte is the National League’s 2024 ROY favorite in our Way Too Early Rookie of the Year Watch.

That’s right — the year after the franchise’s all-time Year of the Rookie.

Marte, one of 16 Reds to make major-league debuts in 2023, just sneaks under the at-bats and service-time thresholds to retain rookie eligibility into next season.

He found out near the end of the season when talking with his agent.

“He told me that there’s some opportunity,” Marte said through team interpreter Jorge Merlos last month.

“Of course” the Rookie if the Year award is on his mind, he said. “But first you have to help the team win. That’s the most important thing.”

Carrying his .316-hitting, .822-OPS performance into a full 2024 would go a long way toward that goal.

If the big favorites, Carroll and the Baltimore Orioles’ Gunnar Henderson, win the two awards, it’ll mean six of the last seven winners helped their teams to the playoffs, the lone exception in 2021 when Jonathan India’s Reds hung in the race into September before falling seven games short of a playoff spot.

Winners are announced Nov. 13, a week after the Reds learn if they’ll have a finalist (Spencer Steer? Matt McLain? Andrew Abbott?) joining Carroll among the top three vote-getters in the NL.

No doubt the 22-year-old kid acquired from the Seattle Mariners in last year’s Luis Castillo deal will be watching with interest.

Just maybe not as much as he did all those young players for Arizona and the newly crowned champion Texas Rangers playing in the World Series.

“That’s why my mentality is to help the team win,” he said, “and then the rest of everything else will come with that.”

💯

A pair of big turnarounds

For those who might have missed the dozens of times it was mentioned during the week of the World Series, the wild-card Diamondbacks and wild-card Rangers both won league championships two seasons after each lost 100 games.

A gold star (sans chili) for anyone who can name the National League team that turned a competitive corner in 2023 and heads into 2024 exactly two seasons removed from its own 100-loss season.

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The Reds were 7-3 this season against the Rangers (3-0) and Diamondbacks (4-3).

Kids Rock

Did somebody say Reds youth movement?

Two more kids to keep eyes on are right-hander Andrew Moore and catcher Michael Trautwein, both of whom just made the Arizona League Fall Stars roster for the National League.

The Arizona Fall League all-star game is Sunday night at 8 (ET), on MLB Network.

The hard-throwing Moore, who didn’t make his season debut in A-ball until late August because of injury, was one of the prospects acquired with Marte from Seattle in that Castillo trade last year.

Trautwein, the Reds’ 13th-round pick out of Northwestern in 2021, split time this season between High-A Dayton and Double-A Chattanooga. He hit three homers with 11 RBIs and a .347 on-base percentage in 13 games this fall for the Surprise, Arizona, team.

They Said It

“I believe in the group of players we’ve assembled. I believe in our leadership in the dugout with Bruce Bochy and Will Venable and Mike Maddux and Donnie Ecker and all of our coaches. … I was a part of a 2015 Kansas City team that maybe wasn’t the most talented on paper but was able to accomplish special things. I really subscribe to ‘It’s all about how the team comes together.’ And certainly there are injuries and things that can impact that. But I believe in our group. I like where we are.

“But until we go out and do it, nobody’s going to give us any credit. We’ve got to prove it.”

*Chris Young, Texas Rangers general manager, April 7 — 98 wins and 218 days before the Rangers clinched the franchise’s first World Series championship Wednesday.

In between, the Rangers lost ace starter Jacob deGrom to a season-ending injury and, from June 30 to July 30, added reliever Aroldis Chapman and starters Jordan Montgomery and Max Scherzer in trades.

Young, a former All-Star pitcher, debuted with the Rangers in 2004 after being traded twice in the minors.

“The wait is over!” he said Wednesday night while holding the championship trophy after the Game 5 clincher in Arizona.

ICYMI, 20-20 Hindsight Edition

TJ Friedl, the Reds’ undrafted, unsung hero in the 2023 lineup, finished his first full season in the big leagues just three bunt hits and two home runs shy of becoming the franchise’s second such 20-20 player in at least the last 62 seasons (expansion era).

As it was, he became the first Red with 17 bunt hits, 18 home runs and at least 26 steals (27) since Bobby Tolan in 1969 (21, 21 and 26).

The left-handed-hitting Friedl, who led the league in bunt hits this year, has turned that into a significant intentional weapon, especially against lefties.

But the 18 home runs (17 of the over-the-fence variety) were a bit less intentional — especially hitting them in three games in a row the final week of the season.

“I hit three home runs in college in three years,” said the former Nevada Wolfpack star. “And they didn’t come in three days, I promise you.”

For now, it’s wait’ll next year to see what his full-season encore might look like. If he keeps the bunt-sprint thing going like this, watch out Bobby Tolan. And if he reaches that rare, niche 20-20 mark, consider it’s something not even famed bunt-hit artists Brett Butler or Juan Pierre ever did.

“That’d be pretty cool,” Friedl said.

The Big Number: 18

That’s how many franchises have won the World Series since the Reds’ last title in 1990 after the Rangers joined the list.

Among the 18 are seven that won a first championship — including two teams that didn’t exist in 1990: the Florida/Miami Marlins (1997, 2003) and Diamondbacks (2001).

In addition to those teams and the Rangers, the Toronto Blue Jays (1992, 1993), Anaheim Angels (2002), Houston Astros (2017*, 2022) and Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos (2019) also won franchise-first titles in that span.

*-Bang the garbage can with a stick once for an explanation, twice for a fastball.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: One Cincinnati Red's 2nd chance at a first-year award | Press Box Wag