Staying Open Minded About The Rookie Of The Year Race
Several weeks ago at Baseball America we started having some preliminary conversations about the leaders for our various awards. Organization of the Year, Major League Player of the Year, Minor League Player of the Year, etc.
The most interesting debate might be our award for Rookie of the Year. Our Rookie of the Year award is different from the BBWAA’s rookie of the year awards in that we don’t honor one player from the American League and one from the National League. Instead we have one Rookie of the Year for the entirety of the majors in any given year.1
My snap instinct was that of course Pirates righthander Paul Skenes was the favorite for the award. No one else was particularly close to him in my mind. I did get some pushback about Padres outfielder Jackson Merrill’s case, and in recent weeks I think Brewers outfielder Jackson Chourio has pushed himself further into the conversation as well.
Today I figured I could use the newsletter to explore the Rookie of the Year case, see who the favorites currently are, unpack each player’s resume a bit and see if I am still as pro-Skenes after a deeper dive as I was initially.
First, here are the top rookies in baseball based on WAR from FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference. Any rookie with at least 3.0 WAR from either site was included. I added a column with the average of both WAR totals to sort the chart:
On first glance, I’m a bit surprised at some of the differences between the WAR totals for a few players. There’s more than a 1.0-WAR difference with Skenes, Masyn Winn and Colton Cowser.
I don’t think I’d realized quite how good Masyn Winn’s 2024 season had been until seeing this chart in front of me, though I’m guessing his huge bWAR number has a lot to do with the fact that he’s been one of the best defenders in the game this year according to defensive runs saved (+14).
Our average WAR score gives us a reasonably clear group of four, so let’s fold Winn into my initial trio of players and see whose case is the most compelling.
Paul Skenes
My case for Skenes is a simple one: Since he was promoted to the majors on May 11 he’s been one of the best 3-5 pitchers in the game.
He won’t show up on the main pitching leaderboards because he simply hasn’t had enough innings to qualify (he’s thrown 114 innings as of this writing) but here’s where he ranks among all pitchers in the majors this year with at least 110 innings:
ERA: 2nd (2.04)
FIP: 3rd (2.76)
xFIP: 4th (2.80)
K%: 4th (32.0%)
K-BB%: 6th (25.2%)
AVG: 9th (.200)
WHIP: 5th (0.98)
In terms of preventing runs, preventing hits, preventing batters from reaching base and striking batters out at a high clip, Skenes has at least been among the 10 best pitchers in baseball as a 22-year-old rookie.
Among rookie pitchers this century, Skenes already has a top-five season under his belt per bWAR and trails this group of players:2
2013 Jose Fernandez, 6.2 bWAR
2003 Brandon Webb, 6.1 bWAR
2019 Michael Soroka, 6.1 bWAR
2016 Michael Fulmer, 5.4 bWAR
2024 Paul Skenes, 5.1 bWAR
Skenes has accumulated that WAR total despite only pitching 114 innings. Of the top 30 bWAR rookie pitching seasons since 2000, only Jonathan Papelbon in 2006 (5.1 bWAR) has fewer innings (68.1) logged than Skenes.
I’m sure there will be some who use Skenes’ innings total against him. He wasn’t up for a full season, so his dominance is less impressive than if he had been. My counter is simply that I can’t hold something out of his control against him, in the same way I don’t really consider the quality of a given player’s teammates as a criteria for an individual award.
Jackson Merrill
If you’re a disciple of FanGraphs WAR, Merrill is the clear favorite here. He leads all players—hitters and pitchers—by a strong margin, has played a premium defensive position and provided a strong blend of average, power and speed while doing so and hitting in the back third or middle of San Diego’s lineup.
Here are his ranks among rookie hitters in a few major offensive categories:
wRC+: 3rd (128)
wOBA: 4th (.349)
AVG: 2nd (.292)
OBP: 14th (.323)
SLG: 3rd (.498)
HR: 1st (22)
SB: 8th (16)
Despite an aggressive approach on swing decisions out of the zone and just a 4.5% walk rate, Merrill has managed to make enough contact, hit for enough power and run the bases well enough to be at least a top-five offensive rookie in baseball. Pair that with his defense in center field and the fact that he’s been up in the majors since mid-March and there’s a fairly easy case to be made that he’s been the best rookie position player in the majors this year.
A key piece of the Merrill for ROY case seems to be his penchant for clutch hitting. Proponents cite his five game-tying or go-ahead homers in the ninth inning or later this season—a record for an age-21 or younger player since 1961—and he does lead all rookie hitters in win probability added (+2.41). Among NL hitters that’s good for ninth-best and among all major league hitters he ranks 18th.
Jackson Chourio
Chourio ranks second behind Merrill in fWAR by a decent margin, but leads him narrowly if you check out bWAR, where Chourio ranks third overall behind Skenes and Winn.
He’s played 11 fewer games than Merrill but has been up with the Brewers since late March where he has played right and left field and hit throughout the lineup—though since July 31st he’s been in one of the first two spots in the order.
Let’s see his rookie ranks in the same categories as Merrill:
wRC+: 6th (121)
wOBA: 6th (.344)
AVG: 3rd (.278)
OBP: 8th (.333)
SLG: 5th (.469)
HR: 3rd (19)
SB: 4th (20)
Chourio needs just one more home run this season to join an elite 20-20 club of age-20 or younger big leaguers that includes only Mike Trout (2012) and Vade Pinson (1959). The modern rules of the game seem to be making 20-20 seasons more commonplace, but I still give Chourio a ton of credit for simply making it to the majors at such a young age, being productive immediately and offering value as a hitter, fielder and runner.
While Chourio’s season is impressive—and I would take him in the long-term over Merrill—I don’t see a strong case for him having a better RoY case than the Merrill does barring a huge difference in play over the final few weeks of the season.
Masyn Winn
We’ve reached our dark horse candidate.
Winn does play the most valuable defensive position among our three hitters and regardless of what you might think about the degree to which he’s been excellent with the glove this season, simply playing the position every day carries a lot of weight.
He’s been up with the club since late March and started out as a bottom-of-the-lineup bat, but took over everyday leadoff hitting duties in June and has maintained that role for the rest of the season.
However, while Merrill and Chourio have been roughly 20-30% better than the average big leaguer at the plate, Winn has been roughly league average. Here’s where he ranks among the same offensive categories for rookies:
wRC+: 13th (105)
wOBA: 12th (.318)
AVG: 4th (.275)
OBP: 12th (.322)
SLG: 12th (.412)
HR: 9th (12)
SB: 14th (10)
All of those are strong numbers for a 22-year-old who’s playing shortstop and giving you above-average defense at the position, though they don’t stand out in the same way Chourio’s do, and certainly not Merrill’s. His case will be driven by the degree to which you value batting average and how good you think he’s been on the defensive end.
I hesitate to even reference single-season defensive metrics, but here we go. Here’s where Winn ranks according to three different metrics among the 18 qualified shortstops this season:
DRS: 1st (+13)
UZR: 6th (+2.2)
OAA: 11th (+3)
Most of these numbers agree he’s been good at the position, but DRS loves him in a way that the other metrics don’t. I do think Winn is at least an above-average defender at the position but haven’t watched him enough or talked to enough scouts about his work to say with much certainty. If the bat was a bit more electric I think this would be a more compelling case, but for me I think he falls a bit short of the other two hitters we’ve talked about.
After looking through our four contenders I’m down to Skenes vs. Merrill. Comparing a pitcher to a hitter isn’t always easy, but for me what stands out is that Skenes has been dominant in the majors relative to all his peers—not just his rookie-level peers. He’s been an ace-level pitcher for the Pirates from day one. There are only a handful of pitchers you could make a case for being better than him.
Merrill has been an excellent hitter all season while playing a premium position, but I don’t think his season has quite risen to top-five or top-10 in all of baseball.
Put differently: if all GMs in the sport were given the choice of adding a Paul Skenes 2024 season to their team vs. a Jackson Merrill 2024 season, which do you think they’d take?
I feel reasonably strongly that Skenes would be the overwhelming choice. So for now, he’d be my pick for Rookie of the Year. How about you?
Apologies to the AL for that distinction this year, as all the compelling candidates come from the senior circuit.
Of this group, Fernandez and Webb both won Baseball America Rookie of the Year awards for these seasons. Fernandez also won the NL rookie of the year award, Fulmer won the AL rookie of the year award and Webb and Soroka finished third and second, respectively, in NL rookie of the year award voting. With respect to Dontrelle Willis, I think BA nailed the 2003 Webb decision. Throw pitcher wins and losses into the trash can.