Paul Skenes Wins National League Rookie of the Year, Gets a Full Year of Service Time

Right wing Pirates Paul Skenes has been voted the 2024 National League Rookie of the Year, the Baseball Writers Association of America announced. The one who plays outside Jackson Merrill for the Padres finished second while playing in the outfield Jackson Chourio the Brewers finished third. Pirates will not receive a PPI bonus for this result, but Skenes will receive a full year of service despite his late call-up.

Skenes, now 22, has quickly developed into one of the sport’s best strikers. As of a year and a half ago, he was still studying at Louisiana State University. The Pirates selected him with the first overall pick in the 2023 draft, with many viewing him as close to MLB-ready as a draft pick.

The Bucs allowed him to get his feet wet as a professional player, putting him in five minor league games late in 2023, but didn’t allow him to throw more than two innings in any of those. There were concerns that he might not be able to break the roster in 2024, but the Pirates decided to build him up a bit. He was started in Triple-A but with his exit most of the time he was kept to three or four innings.

Without the kid gloves, Skenes showed it was time to break free, posting a 0.99 earned run average in those minor league outings. That earned him a promotion to major in May, less than a year after being appointed as an engineer.

His young age and lack of technical experience were easily overcome by his incredible talent. Flashing a triple-digit fastball, a damaging “splinker” and a few other pitches in his arsenal, Skenes went on to throw 133 innings over 23 major league starts. During that time, he had a 1.96 ERA, a 33.1% strikeout rate, a 6.2% walk rate and a 51.3% groundball percentage. He produced 4.3 wins above replacement in the eyes of FanGraphs, ranking him 10th among all pitchers in the majors this year, despite throwing fewer innings than anyone ahead of him.

The timing of his calling and this victory are both noteworthy. The collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players outlines measures designed to encourage top prospects to be promoted, promote expectations, and eliminate service time manipulation. If a player is on a certain top 100 prospect list and is promoted early enough to earn a full year of service, that player can earn his club a draft pick depending on award voting. On the other hand, if such a player is not promoted early enough to receive a full year but still manages to finish in the top two in Rookie of the Year voting regardless, that player earns a full year of service in retrospect.

If Skenes had been promoted earlier in the year, this award would have earned the Bucs another goal. But since he was caught in May, they were not eligible to receive that selection. Skenes, on the other hand, will now have a full year of service time. That’s important to him as he is now slated to be released after the 2029 season, his 27-year-old campaign. Under previous collective bargaining agreements, his free agency was one year into the future.

Merrill was eligible to receive the Padres’ PPI bonus pick and likely would have done so in any other year. He just had the misfortune of competing with Skenes in the election. According to the BBWAA, each of the 30 votes had Skenes and Merrill in the top two, 23 of which put Skenes first and seven of which favored Merrill.

The fact that it was close shows how impressive Merrill has been this year. A shortstop prospect with no Triple-A experience, Merrill moved to center field this year to help the Padres fill a void at that position and start over. He appeared in 156 games for the Friars, scoring 24 runs, stealing 16 bases, slashing .292/.326/.500 and earning strong marks with his glove work.

There was an argument that Merrill deserved the award more than Skenes since his performance had ended a full season, and apparently a number of voters leaned that way, but in the end it wasn’t enough to get Merrill over the line. Despite an impressive performance, he comes up just shy of a trophy while the Padres are just shy of a bonus draft pick.

The third-place votes were separated by only two players, as Chourio received 26 again Shota Imanaga of the Cubs got four more. Chourio hit 21 home runs and stole 22 bases, hitting .275/.327/.464 while providing solid outfield defense. Imanaga threw 173 1/3 innings over 29 starts for the Cubs with a 2.91 ERA. In many other years, those two players could have won the award, but instead they were relegated to third place by a few votes due to the amazing seasons of Skenes and Merrill. Players love it Masyn Winn again Joey Ortiz and had great seasons but couldn’t even get the votes because of how strong the competition was in the National League this year.