Merrill's strong Rookie of the Year argument

This story was excerpted from AJ Cassavell’s Padres Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

SAN DIEGO -- Finalists for the Baseball Writers’ Association of America awards will be announced tonight, and Jackson Merrill will assuredly find himself in the running for the National League Rookie of the Year Award. The winner is set to be announced Nov. 18.

There will be three finalists unveiled tonight. But whoever the third candidate is, it’s already clear this is a two-player race. It's Merrill vs. Pittsburgh's Paul Skenes.

Credit to Skenes. His rookie season was outstanding. I think Padres fans might be discrediting his accomplishments a bit, largely out of their desire to see Merrill win. But there will be reasonable people who vote for Skenes. His case is a strong one.

All of that said, I also staunchly believe this: Merrill had a better, more impactful 2024 season than Skenes and deserves to be the NL Rookie of the Year. Here are three reasons why:

1. The accomplishments
The traditional WAR metrics are split between Skenes and Merrill. Skenes had the higher bWAR and Merrill the higher fWAR.

Skenes was dominant, posting a 1.96 ERA. But he did so in only 23 starts and 133 innings, not nearly the level of impact across Merrill's 156 games (a remarkable number for a rookie who played 15 games as a high schooler three years prior).

In those 156 games, Merrill's numbers were gaudy. He led all MLB rookies in 2024 in hits (162), extra-base hits (61), RBIs (90), batting average (.292) and slugging percentage (.500). With 24 home runs, Merrill was tied for first with Baltimore’s Colton Cowser.

Merrill also played an outstanding center field (more on that later), worth 12 outs above average.

Skenes, meanwhile, drew the bigger headlines upon his arrival because of the nature of his status as the sport's top pitching prospect. He proceeded to do everything he could to live up to those expectations. This is no knock against him.

It just so happens that a somewhat less heralded rookie reached those same heights -- and did so across a greater body of work.

2. All those clutch moments
Maybe this is unfair to Skenes, whose Pirates weren't in the midst of a second-half pennant race. But it's undeniably true for Merrill that he made a major impact in some of the biggest moments of the Padres’ season.

That has to count for something.

Merrill's numbers are impressive enough. But not all homers are created equal. And nobody hit more clutch home runs than Merrill in 2024.

Against some of the sport's best relievers -- Mason Miller and Edwin Díaz among them -- Merrill hit five game-tying or go-ahead home runs in the ninth inning or later. He's the youngest player in the expansion era (since at least 1961) to do so, and the first rookie.

Merrill's contributions made a direct impact on the Padres winning. Isn’t that the goal, after all? Just take it from Merrill himself, who was asked midseason about potentially winning Rookie of the Year.

"I don’t even care about that stuff," Merrill said. "... I care about our team right here, and I care about winning."

He contributed an awful lot to that cause.

3. The intangibles
For most voters, this is strictly a numbers-based award. I guess that's fine. Most voters don’t get to watch Merrill on a nightly basis. I did not have a vote for this particular award. But I gave my input to voters who asked for it. And I tried to convey the value Merrill brought which couldn’t be quantified.

For one, he moved to center field having never played an inning there in his life at any level. And he did so seamlessly -- incredibly eager and coachable along the way. The Padres desperately needed a center fielder and were exploring trades in Spring Training. Then Merrill solved their problems for them.

But it goes beyond that. In a clubhouse with plenty of big personalities, the 21-year-old Merrill has already emerged as a leader. His energy plainly rubbed off on a team that, frankly, needed an infusion of it after a disappointing 2023 season.

I think this quote from Michael King -- after an August start in which King struggled early but rebounded late -- summed up Merrill’s unquantifiable impact:

“He’s 21 years old; everything he does is baseball,” King said. “It’s not like he has a family that he goes home to and kids that he goes and talks to. He gets to the field, and he’s so happy to be here and talks about how we’re all his best friends, and we’re just having fun.

“Now me, sitting here, having a bad outing -- I look at Jackson and I’m like, ‘That’s the mentality that I need to have.’ It’s just his contagious mentality. We go out, and we’re playing a kids’ game. We’re loving each other. And it’s a lot easier game when you’re playing for your brothers.”

Merrill made it pretty clear pretty quickly that he is wise beyond his years. But he still played the game with the unbridled enthusiasm of a rookie getting to live his dream.

In one week, that rookie who lived his dream should have a Rookie of the Year Award to show for it.