Rastall Ramblings: Collins Making Strong Case for Rookie of the Year

How do you follow up being named the National League’s Rookie of the Month for July? Hitting your first career walk-off home run isn’t a bad encore.

Flamethrowing pitcher Jacob Misirowski has understandably grabbed most the headlines as the Brewers rookie that the team’s own fanbase and baseball fans in general are most excited about, but it’s left fielder Isaac Collins that has the best chance of any Brewers player to bring home some individual hardware this year.

Collins capped off the Brewers’ latest devil magic/pocket pancakes/power of friendship dramatics with a walk-off home run this past Sunday against the Mets, finishing off a rally from 5-0 down to thrill a crowd of over 30,000 that made it to American Family Field despite flooding in and around Milwaukee.

Collins is now slashing .295/.395/.448 for the season following the Mets series and is the Brewers team leader in fWAR. No one would have possibly predicted this sentence coming into the season, but Isaac Collins has a case for being the best player on the best team in baseball as we move through the second full week of August.

Since Collins became the team’s everyday left fielder back on June 12, he’s posted a sensational slash line of .342/.434/.535. That’s two months of playing like one of the best in the entire MLB.

Thanks to this surge, he’s forced his way not just into NL Rookie of the Year conversations but is quickly establishing himself as one of the frontrunners for that award. As of the end of Sunday’s games, Collins leads all qualifying NL rookies in the following statistical categories: batting average, on-base percentage, fWAR and wRC+.

Advanced stats, traditional stats, it doesn’t matter when making the case for Collins. He belongs right there with Atlanta Braves catcher Drake Baldwin on the top of the list for the NL Rookie of the Year consideration.

Perhaps the level of national buzz hasn’t quite caught up to the production Collins is putting out there on a daily basis, but he’ll make himself undeniable if he continues to play at this level in the weeks ahead. And hey, being named Rookie of the Month and smacking a walk-off homer doesn’t hurt in terms of self-promotion.