Who's ahead in the race for the NL ROY?

The NL Rookie of the Year race has so many good candidates this year. You have Stephen Strasburg, Jason Heyward, Mike Leake, Jaime Garcia, and Ike Davis. Let's go through the stats for each player and see who's really ahead in the ROY race.

Stephen Strasburg has lived up to all the hype. He is 2-2 with a 2.27 ERA and 48 K's in 5 starts and 31.2 IP. His K/9 ratio is 13.6 and his BB/9 is 2.0, both incredible. His K/BB, is 6.86. In addition, he has given up just 7.1 hits and 0.7 homers per 9 innings. His record is only 2-2 because the Nationals haven't scored any runs for him twice, and they only scored 1 run for him once. On a better team, he could be 4-1 right now. Strasburg has really been incredible so far this year.

Jason Heyward of the Braves has proven to be a good hitter so far this year. He is hitting just .251, but with 13 doubles, 11 homers, 45 RBI, and a .366 OBP in 71 games. He hit just .181 with 1 homer and 7 RBI in June, so that's why his numbers don't stand out as much as they did earlier in the year. He has still been a very clutch player, despite the recent slump, as he has hit .306 with runners in scoring position and .298 with runners on base at all (he hits .209 with the bases empty). I did a post on Heyward earlier in the year (http://11ornothing.blogspot.com/2010/04/whats-going-on-with-jason-heyward.html), if you want to check that out. Despite the slump and injury, Heyward is certainly a competitor for the NL ROY.

Mike Leake of the Reds skipped the minors and has done well for the Reds so far in '10. He has gone 5-1 with a 3.30 ERA and 62 K's in 15 starts and 95.1 IP. He has posted a sub-par 5.9 K/9, but a decent 3.6 BB/9. Leake has had bad starts (5 or more earned runs) in 3 of his last 4 starts to almost pull himself out of this race. But, if he gets on a roll like he did at the beginning of the year, he will have a shot.

After faltering in an '08 callup, Jaime Garcia of the Cardinals has returned to the majors and excelled. He has gone 7-4 with a 2.27 ERA and 70 K's in 15 starts and 87.1 IP. He has posted a 7.2 K/9 and a 3.8 BB/9, for a 1.89 K/BB ratio. He has also been hard to hit, giving up just 7.5 hits and 0.4 homers per 9 innings. Garcia wasn't very well known before this year, but he really has a shot to win the NL ROY.

Mets 1st basman Ike Davis has been a pretty good hitter so far in '10. He has hit .261 with 14 doubles, 9 homers, 34 RBI, and a .335 OBP in 65 games. He has also been a great defensive 1B. After hitting .324 in April with a homer and 6 RBI (he debuted on April 19th), he hit just .235 in May with 4 homers and 9 RBI. He did rebound with a .264 BA, 4 homers, and 19 RBI in June, but he still is hitting just .261. He is hitting .284 with runners in scoring position. In addition, Davis has been a great defensive 1B. Davis has really cooled off from his hot start. He'll have to get back to that level in the 2nd half of the year to be in NL ROY contention.

At this point, it seems that Stephen Strasburg and Jaime Garcia are the leaders in the NL ROY race. But, all young starters have an innings limit, so that will certainly hurt them. If he can stay healthy, Jason Heyward could sneak up on them and win the award. Of course, it's also possible that one of the other rookies that I may or may not have listed here could get hot in the 2nd half and be the NL ROY. Like everything else in sports, we'll just have to see what happens.