It is safe to say that rookie Jose Abreu has surprised a lot of people in baseball this season. He has taken the league by storm, and he has dazzled fans with his monster production, and his defensive plays at first base.
With the statistics he has put up thus far, Jose Abreu has been the best player in the 2014 MLB season. The 27 year old is from Cuba and he is contributing big time to the Chicago White Sox.
Going into Saturday July 19, Abreu is leading the league with 29 home runs, and is in the top five in the league with 73 runs batted in, according to MLB.com. The way Abreu is dominating baseball on such a high level in a short amount of time is similar to Yaisel Puig’s emergence last season.
During Puig’s first month in the big leagues, he dominated hitting eight home runs and had a bating average of .443, reported ESPN. Also, both players are from Cuba, which draws the comparisons of both players playing professional baseball in America.
However, Abreu in my mind has surpassed what Puig did last season by a landslide. Individually, Abreu is on pace to hit more than 50 home runs this season. Puig is on pace to only hit about 30 home runs overall. That is almost double the amount of home runs when you compare the two all-stars.
Despite another well-known all-star Mike Trout winning the 2014 all-star game MVP and being one of the poster boys for baseball, his production in his first season does not compare to Abreu. In Trout’s first full season in 2012, he hit 30 home runs the entire season. Abreu has nearly the same amount of home runs right now and the White Sox have not even reached 100 games played yet.
Another big named all-star Miguel Cabrera has similar stats compared to Abreu in 2014, however he is a veteran in the MLB. He is not a rookie playing for the first time in the big leagues. Abreu doing what he is doing has him in the discussion for MVP of the American League.
I cannot get enough of Jose Abreu. He has won me over as a fan, and I hope to see more monster production out of the Cuban slugger. Not only should he win rookie of the year honors, I see multiple MVPs during his career as long as he stays healthy.