Did the Brewers’ Devin Williams make the highlight reel regularly enough in 2020 to become the rare reliever to earn the National League Rookie of the Year Award?

The answer will come Nov. 9, when the Baseball Writers' Association of America reveals its choices for the top rookies in each league. Williams, who already has been named the NL Reliever of the Year by Major League Baseball, is a finalist for the NL rookie honor alongside two position players, Jake Cronenworth of the Padres and Alec Bohm of the Phillies.

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Williams is coming off a record-setting season in which he set all-time Major League marks for strikeout rate and strikeouts per nine innings, and it wouldn’t be unprecedented for a relief pitcher to win the Rookie of the Year Award. Since Jackie Robinson won the first such honor in 1947 -- two years later, a winner was chosen in each league -- 11 relief pitchers have won it:

1950 Joe Black, Dodgers
1976 Butch Metzger, Padres
1980 Steve Howe, Dodgers
1986 Todd Worrell, Cardinals
1989 Gregg Olson, Orioles
1999 Scott Williamson, Reds
2000 Kazuhiro Sasaki, Mariners
2005 Huston Street, A’s
2009 Andrew Bailey, A’s
2010 Neftali Feliz, Rangers
2011 Craig Kimbrel, Braves

What would make Williams unique is that he didn’t pitch as a traditional closer for the Brewers in 2020. Of the 11 relievers who have won their league’s Rookie of the Year Award, only Williamson didn’t lead his team in saves. He did save 19 games for Cincinnati that season, but Danny Graves led the Reds with 27 saves.

Williams already has made some Brewers history just by virtue of being a finalist. Only twice before this year did a Brewers pitcher finish among the top three in his league’s Rookie of the Year Award balloting, and both of the previous two were Brewers starters: Bill Parsons in 1981 and Teddy Higuera in 1985.

For Williams in his age-25 season, the question is whether voters judged his body of work in 27 innings as superior to that of Cronenworth (.831 OPS, 1.4 Baseball-Reference WAR) and Bohm (.881 OPS, 0.7 bWAR). Williams (1.2 bWAR) set the all-time record for a pitcher who worked more than a handful of innings in a season with 17.7 strikeouts per nine innings, most of them with a changeup possessing so much movement that it garnered its own name: the Airbender.

The results were stunning. Playing that changeup off a 98 mph fastball, Williams posted a 0.33 ERA in 22 games and struck out 53 of the 100 batters he faced, a 53 percent strikeout rate that also represents an all-time record. In plate appearances ending on a changeup, opposing hitters were 2-for-62 with 41 strikeouts.

"I think the biggest thing for me is probably just confidence in my stuff and trusting it,” Williams said along the way. “You know, never giving in to hitters. ... I think that's been the biggest step forward for me this year."

The season ended in disappointing fashion. Williams was left off the roster for the Brewers’ NL Wild Card Series against the Dodgers after developing shoulder soreness. By then, however, the BBWAA awards ballots had been cast.

“It's a historic season,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said during the final week of the regular season. “Everything else has really been said.”