Rougned Odor wins Richard Durrett award

Everyone has heard of the Silver Slugger, Gold Glove, MVP’s and Cy Young awards. But Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor has taken home an award that largely goes unnoticed—the Richard Durrett award, given to the Hardest Working Man in baseball. The award is given to the player that shows the most improvement through his hard work.

Odor struggled at the start of 2015, hitting .144 in the first 29 games before being sent down to the minors in May. He lit it up in Round Rock and returned to the Majors on June 15th. From there he batted .292 the rest of the year, bumping his average for the year up to .261 with 16 homers and 61 RBIs in 120 games.

Overall his second campaign was a step up over his rookie year. In 2014 he racked up 100 hits with 14 doubles, seven triples and nine homeruns and 48 RBIs with a .259 batting average. This season he improved in almost every area despite his very slow start. He got 111 hits with 21 doubles, nine triples and 16 homeruns and 61 RBIs, with a modest improvement in his batting average to .261.

The award was named for former DFW sports writer Richard Durrett, who passed away in 2014 at the age of 38 from what was initially reported as a brain aneurysm, but the cause of death is still unclear. Durrett had worked for ESPNDallas and had hosted a down on KESN.

The local Baseball Writer’s Association of America will present the award to Odor at the Dr. Pepper Awards Banquet on January 22nd at the Gaylord Texan Resort.