NL Rookie Of The Year: Who Could Challenge Paul Skenes For 2024 Award?
Image credit: Paul Skenes (Photo by Eddie Kelly / ProLook Photos)
While the American League Rookie of the Year race remains wide open, the Senior Circuit has a clear favorite following the 2024 All-Star break.
Of course, It’s Paul Skenes.
The 22-year-old phenom recently became the first player to be an All-Star the year after being drafted. Additionally, he became just the fifth rookie pitcher ever to start the midsummer classic.
Through 11 starts, he has pitched 66.1 innings, logging a pristine 1.90 ERA and a 0.92 WHIP. He has a 34.9% strikeout rate and has walked just 5.1% of opposing batters.
While a 92.3% left-on-base rate suggests he’s been somewhat fortunate, it’s also true that great pitchers get themselves out of jams. Otherwise, advanced metrics back up what Skenes has done since his May 11th debut. Here are his league-wide ranks since that date:
Clearly, he’s been a top-2 starter in MLB during this stretch. Things become even more impressive when looking at Skenes’ rookie year historically. Only Spencer Strider in 2022 has a higher K% and K-BB% among all first-year starters.
Strikeouts are, indeed, more prevalent in today’s game, but even when adjusting for era by using K%+, Skenes ranks tied for sixth among qualified rookie arms since 2000. Here’s who he trails:
Among qualified rookie starting pitchers with at least 60 innings thrown, only Roy Oswalt has a higher K/BB+ over the past 25 years. Meanwhile, using the same parameters, Skenes has the second-lowest ERA and WHIP since 2000.
It remains to be seen how the Pirates will manage his workload in the second half, but if Skenes stays healthy, it’s hard to imagine anyone else taking home NL rookie honors this season.
That said, we’ll still dive into his biggest contenders and determine who might finish in the runner-up spots during end-of-season voting.
Position Players
Here’s a top-down view of the 16 National League rookies with at least 100 plate appearances, sorted by fWAR:
Masyn Winn and Joey Ortiz have each used their plus zone-contact skills and positive fielding value to zoom toward the top of the WAR leaderboard. Winn leads this class in batting average while ranking top-4 in OBP, SLG, run and RBI. Ortiz has the best OBP of this group and is one of six hitters in MLB with a BB/K of 0.70 or higher, plus a walk rate over 13%. The others? Only the likes of Mookie Betts, Juan Soto, Kyle Tucker, Freddie Freeman and Bryce Harper.
As for the wRC+ leader, Michael Busch’s production is fueled by a double-digit walk rate combined with the second-highest ISO among the rookie class. Busch doesn’t excel at making contact in the zone, but he has one of the best zone-minus-chase rates among all rookies. His 11.6% barrel rate leads NL rookies while ranking in the 78th percentile among all big league bats.
Last month, we covered the adjustments Jackson Merrill was making to prepare for potential stardom. In July, however, he’s hitting just .167/.196/.241 with zero homers and a 35.7% strikeout rate. Merrill continues to swing more in the strike zone, but he’s also beginning to chase more than is ideal.
In June, he swung outside the zone 34% of the time. So far in July, he’s at 42.3%.
This is part of the continuous “cat and mouse game” between hitters and pitchers. While all big leaguers experience it, the time it takes to adjust can be more extensive for rookies. This is especially true for someone like Merill, who entered 2024 with just 46 games above High-A. The league has countered his June heater, and now it’s time for him to adjust back.
Lastly, it’s worth noting that since June 8th, Jackson Chourio’s 1.4 fWAR ranks t-15th among all National League position players. His 145 wRC+ ranks 22nd. A slow start in April and May are affecting his season-long numbers, but over the past six weeks, he looks far more like the elite prospect he was viewed as entering the year.
Starting Pitchers
Next, we’ll make a closer examination of the 18 NL rookies who have accrued at least 0.5 fWAR with a minimum of 30 innings pitched (relievers included):
Shota Imanaga was off to a blistering start to his MLB career through mid-May. Since then, he’s had games allowing seven and 10 earned runs. His ERA is at 2.86 despite those blowups, and if we remove them from his ledger, he’d have a sparkling 1.49 ERA.
Imanaga still isn’t throwing quite as hard as he was in April, but he’s at least been able to reverse the trend of declining velocity. Already possessing a 40-inning edge on Skenes, he could make a run at rookie honors if he can finish strong in the second half.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto has a lot of green on his row in the chart above, which is good. He allowed five earned runs in his MLB debut against the Padres in Korea. Over his next 13 starts, up until his shoulder injury, he posted a 2.34 ERA with 82 strikeouts against just 16 walks. On Monday, it was reported that he expanded his long-toss throwing program to 180-200 feet.
Through early May, Jared Jones had some of us questioning if he was the better pitching prospect than Skenes. A 52:5 K:BB with outrageous Stuff+ numbers will do that. Walks have been an issue of late, however, as Jones has allowed multiple walks in each of his past seven outings. Currently sidelined with a Grade 2 right lat strain, Jones threw out to 90-120 feet on Monday. The hope is some rest (even if it’s due to injury) will help him finish as strong as he began the year.
Finally, let’s give a shout out to Nationals southpaw DJ Herz. Though he has some unfortunate surface-level stats with a 3.44 xFIP and a 22.7 K-BB%, the upside is evident as Herz has struck out double digits in two of his past five starts. He has also given up five homers during this stretch, which is a concern considering his 47% fly ball rate. Christian Scott has a similar issue without the same strikeout upside.
Predictions
- Current Ballot: Paul Skenes, Shota Imanaga, Jackson Merrill
- End-of-Season Winner: Paul Skenes
