Okay, who WAS the last?

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Met rookie* to win a starting job (rotation or lineup) out of Spring Training?



* (defined as "eligible to win that season's ROTY award")

[MFS62]

Probably Ty Wiginton - at third base in 2003.
He had fewer than 100 AB in 2002.

Later

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

No, Wiggy had played in 46 games in '02. Not eligible, I think.

Technically the answer is "Matsui in 2004" but he'd already won the job the day he signed his contract, probably his best day in MLB ever.

And you could argue that Diaz "won" a job last year (by dint of Cameron's injury) and then he ended up playing the most games in RF eventually, but please don't.

Another technical answer would be Yoshii in 1998, at the age of 33, with a Japanese career behind him, but the last non-Japanese player eligible for the ROTY award, I think, looks like Ordonez in 1996.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I'll open the bidding with Dwight Gooden in 1984.

There are probably more recent examples, but at least we've set a baseline.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Kevin Elster, 1988. Gregg Jefferies (technically, anyway) in 1989.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Jumping ahead a bunch of years, we get Rey Ordonez in 1996.

[metirish]

Does Shinjo count?

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

He'd probaby count as much as Matsui.

There's also Butch Huskey in 1996.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

How about Jay Payton in 2000?

[metirish]

Payton made his debut in september 98.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

But he was a rookie in 2000.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Actually, I may be wrong about Wiggy--he got a single vote for 2003 NL ROTY (so did Reyes) so I'm thinking maybe he was eligible.

[Guest 86-Dreamer]

Didn't Tyler Yates beat out Seo for the 5th spot in the rotation way, way back in 2004?

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/boxscore?gameId=240409120

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Yes, Tyler Yates did win a rotation spot in spring training.

How about that!

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Did he? I thought his job was initially given to Erickson who pulled a groin warming up for this first start.

[Guest Edgy DC]

The Mets ope'd 2004 with Glavine-Leiter-Trachsel-Erickson-Yates. Seo took Erickson's slot after the injury. He pitched barely adequately in 21 starts, but the number five slot was Yates' from the beginning, and was unsettled throughout most of the year.

[metirish]

What a starting rotation that was, did James Baldwin take Erickson's spot for a while?

[Guest Edgy DC]

At that point, it was Yates' slot, but yeah.