Caleb Durbin Named Rookie of the Year Finalist

[Matthew Lenz]

While the Milwaukee Brewers as a team didn't bring home any postseason hardware, one of their players may need to make room on their mantles for an individual award.

The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) announced its award finalists on Monday, including Caleb Durbin as a Rookie of the Year finalist.

Durbin appeared in 105 games primarily at second base and shortstop. He finished the year with a .785 OPS, including nine home runs, and totaled 48 runs scored. He also swiped 22 bases. Overall, Durbin registered a .345 weighted On-Base Average (wOBA), resulting in a 121 wRC+. Defensively, Durbin was credited with +5 Outs Above Average (OAA) at second base, which would have ranked 7th in baseball had he had enough innings to qualify.

Do you think he will win the award? Let us know in the comments!

View full rumor

[Telemachus Rafaelidys]

Third base

[TURBO]

6 minutes ago, Telemachus said:

Third base

?

[Frisbee Slider]

1 hour ago, TURBO said:

?

The post says Durbin played primarily second and short. 

[Team Canada]

42 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

The post says Durbin played primarily second and short. 

Yeah that's a weird obvious typo. @Matthew Lenz?

[Outlander]

None of those stats are Durbin's either so not sure who the player is.

[sveumrules]

13 minutes ago, Outlander said:

None of those stats are Durbin's either so not sure who the player is.

Players with +5 OAA at 2B in 2025...
Tommy Edman, Ernie Clement, Max Schuemann, Daniel Schneemann
(are those last two even real dudes?)

Players with 22 SB in 2025...
Cedric Mullins, Lawrence Butler, David Hamilton, Wyatt Langford

Looks like the stats cited in the article do not belong to any 2025 player.

 

[CheezWizHed]

I don't know...

6 hours ago, Telemachus said:

Third base

 

[CheezWizHed]

I saw the 785 OPS and thought... Wow, he did a lot better than I remembered!  Oh, it was 721...

[PlayerHader]

8 hours ago, TURBO said:

?

Article says second base and short stop

[Underachiever]

21 hours ago, Matthew Lenz said:

Durbin appeared in 105 games

136, but who’s counting? 
 

Not the author of this article, apparently. Gonna guess AI contributed heavily to this. 

[Playing Catch]

2 hours ago, Underachiever said:

Gonna guess AI contributed heavily to this.

I added a spoiler just in case people have no interest in considering AI's impact on BrewerFanatic.

Spoiler

I hope that those in power at the lower-levels of the internet (i.e. where the vast majority of employers, consumers, and citizens reside), understand that while AI errors are mostly innocuous when talking about baseball, those errors have a much greater effect on those seeing those errors. It (A) breeds distrust in AI/information, and/or (B), convinces an unwitting public that AI proficiency is so far away that there is nothing to be concerned about its rapid development.

Big Tech has no interest in policing itself, and governments struggle to react and enforce in an appropriate timeframe to make an impact at securing the internet. I realize adding a button to "flag" material as AI-inspired/AI-originated on a baseball fansite seems like overkill, or that it could backfire, but at this point in time, AI is inherently "falsely" generated. Making sveumrules do all of our fact-checking seems unfair. Putting in a "flag-button" might at least help others dig in, and do some fact-checking to help dig out of this pile of slop.

edit to add... I don't think a single baseball-related AI response I've seen this season has been correct, aside from the most basic information (which is simply statistical good fortune on AI's part).