Whit Merrifield, Adalberto Mondesi and Brad Keller win 2018 Royals team awards
At this time last year, the Royals were hoping that right-hander Brad Keller pitched well enough to stay on their major-league roster.
The Royals acquired Keller in a trade with the Cincinnati Reds after he had been selected in the Rule 5 draft from the Arizona Diamondbacks. If Keller struggled to the point where the Royals couldn’t justify keeping him on their roster, he would have to be offered back to Arizona.
That was never an issue. Keller thrived, going 9-6 with a 3.08 ERA in 41 appearances, including 20 starts. His ERA was the best among American League rookies who had at least 140 innings pitched.
For his efforts, Keller won the Bruce Rice Pitcher of the Year award, which the Royals announced Wednesday when revealing their annual team award winners.
Infielder/outfielder Whit Merrifield, who led the majors with 192 hits and 45 stolen bases, won the Les Milgram Player of the Year award. He was just the third player since World War II to lead the majors in both categories (Dee Gordon in 2015 and Ichiro Suzuki in 2001). Merrifield batted .304 with 43 doubles and scored 88 runs.
The Joe Burke Special Achievement Award went to infielder Adalberto Mondesi, who stole 32 bases and hit 17 home runs in just 75 games after starting the season on the disabled list. Despite playing in so few games, Mondesi finished 14th in FanGraphs’ version of Wins Above Average (2.8) among all major-league shortstops.
All three awards were voted on by members of the Kansas City Chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America at the end of last season.
The annual Royals FanFest is this weekend at Bartle Hall. It’s open to the public from 2-9 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $12 for adults and $5 for kids between the ages of 6 and 17. Children who are under the age of 6 can enter for free. More information can be found at royals.com/fanfest.
This story was originally published January 23, 2019 at 12:44 PM.
