Anthony Rendon of the Nationals has taken the 2016 National League Comeback Player of the Year honors while the American League Comeback Player of the Year is Cy Young winner Rick Porcello of the Red Sox.
The award is given annually by Major League Baseball to a player in each league who has "re-emerged on the field" during the season. That's vague, but it does show that the player should have been good before, then stumbled and then was good again. The 30 MLB.com beat writers (one per team) vote on the winners from a group of 30 players chosen as nominees (again, one per team). Voting tallies aren't made public, so we don't know the other nominees or even runners-up.
In the case of both of these guys, they were coming off injury-riddled seasons with poor performance and definitely bounced back in a big way.
Here's Porcello, who, again, won the Cy Young in 2016:
| Year | W-L | ERA | WHIP | IP | K/BB |
| 2015 | 9-15 | 4.92 | 1.36 | 172 | 3.92 |
| 2016 | 22-4 | 3.15 | 1.01 | 223 | 5.91 |
Porcello's WAR from 2014-16 went 4.0-0.6-5.0, so he definitely works here.
Some other possible AL candidates (again, there could only be one per team and we're speculating): Chris Tillman, Orioles; Yu Darvish, Rangers; Victor Martinez, Tigers; Robinson Cano, Mariners
And now Rendon, who finished fifth in NL MVP voting in 2014:
| Year | AVG/OBP/SLG | 2B | HR | RBI | SB |
| 2015 | .264/.344/.363 | 16 | 5 | 25 | 1 |
| 2016 | .270/.348/.450 | 38 | 20 | 85 | 12 |
Re-emerged!
Some other possible NL candidates: Jose Fernandez, Marlins; Wil Myers, Padres
Rendon was also a difficult choice over his teammate Wilson Ramos.
Still, Porcello and Rendon seem like fine choices.
