The Impossible Rookie of the Year Choice

Since 1949 the MLB Rookie of the Year Award has been given to each League's most outstanding rookie, and over time it has grown into one of the three most illustrious awards that a player can win. Baseball legends such as Jackie Robinson, Ichiro Suzuki and Albert Pujols have taken home the award throughout the years, and for many the award signifies great things ahead for elite young talent. In 2024 there have been a growing number of MLB analysts and fans alike calling for a change to how the voters evaluate rookies, specifically pitchers. Much of this is due to the meteoric rise of Pirates mega-prospect Paul Skenes, who has put up a rookie season for the ages while still being ranked second in Rookie of the Year odds.

The frontrunner for this year's NL Rookie of the year award is outfielder Jackson Merrill from the San Diego Padres. Much of the argument for Merrill centers around the fact that he was an everyday position player and a catalyst for the outstanding run the Padres went on in the second half of the season. He finished the regular season with 24 HRs, a slash line of .292/.326/.500 and an OPS of .826. These are great numbers for any player, especially a 21 year old rookie. Additionally, his numbers look fairly similar to those of last year's NL Rookie of the Year Corbin Carroll and the AL winner Gunnar Henderson. Merrill is certainly very deserving of the award and most seasons he would be the clear winner. However, this is not most seasons due to the presence of a generational talent as his primary competition.

Now let us look at the season Skenes has put together this year and how it stacks up to other starting pitchers who have earned Rookie of the Year honors. The most recent starter to win the award was Michael Fulmer of the Detroit Tigers in 2016. He finished the season with an 11-7 record and a 3.06 ERA over 159 innings pitched, good for a WAR of 5.4. This year Paul Skenes went 11-3 with an ERA of 1.96 and a mind-boggling 170 Ks in 133 innings, accruing a WAR of 5.9 along the way. Another number I look at in evaluating the single season numbers of multiple pitchers is their ERA+, which compares their ERA against all other qualified pitchers in that specific year where 100 is the league average. This year, Skenes ERA+ was 214, meaning he was 114% better than league average. The previous two starting pitchers to win the award, Michael Fulmer and Jacob DeGrom (2014), had an ERA+ of 139 and 128 respectively. Paul Skenes numbers in 2024 would be good enough to win the Cy Young award in many years and he was good enough to start the All-Star game as a rookie. That should be more than enough to earn the Rookie of the Year.

After watching both players over the course of the season and tracking their numbers my conclusion is that both of them should be Rookie of the Year. It is time to take positional bias out of consideration and create an award for the best rookie pitcher and the best rookie batter. The NFL has already done this to eliminate skill position bias and the MLB has the Cy Young award as the equivalent of the MVP award for pitchers. If any season makes a clear case for splitting the award it is this one, because it would be a tragedy for Skenes rookie season to not be celebrated with some hardware on his mantle.

John Siebels is the owner of Springhill Sports Cards, he collects and sells sports cards on Ebay, you can find him on Instagram and his Ebay store here