On Jackson Merrill & Bad Timing

I generally steer clear of end-of-year awards chatter. The reality is that most awards in sports are quite arbitrary. They are handed down by people with agendas. With biases. With… opinions. But something about 2024 has me thinking about award season a bit more frequently. More specifically, I’m thinking about it in conjunction with the rookie season of Jackson Merrill.

The San Diego Padres outfielder has been a star. One of seemingly a dozen former shortstops on the roster, Jackson Merrill has been a massive factor in the second half rise of the Friars. A team that was aiming to scratch out a wild card spot has instead put themselves in the shocking position where even the possibility of a division title doesn’t seem like a stretch.

And yet, the end of the year likely won’t bring the recognition that Merrill inarguably deserves. Lost in the shadow of a dominant season from Paul Skenes, he stands virtually no chance of capturing the National League Rookie of the Year crown. Which is fine! Skenes has been historically good as a rookie given myriad factors. Nevertheless, his excellence in Year 1 merits discussion about the Rookie of the Year concept, as well as Merrill’s standing in the broader discussion of previous races.

 

Merrill Support

 

Jackson Merrill is a perfect microcosm of the 2024 San Diego Padres. As of this writing, the Padres rank ninth in the league in runs scored (571), and are right in the mix with roughly four of the teams in front of them. They don’t hit for a ton of power team-wide (.152 ISO), but no team has struck out less than San Diego (17.7 K%). Their 81.9 Contact% sits as the league’s top mark. This is indicative of the type of rookie year Merrill is turning in for the Padres. Occasional power, but a lot of contact leading to positive results.

While a strong figure, Merrill’s .191 ISO isn’t elite. Among qualifying position players, it isn’t even in the top 50. But his K% (18.3) does sit in the top 50, while his Contact% (81.2) is top 40. If we narrow the focus in a couple of ways, various contexts make him look even better. Within the Padres’ roster, for example, Merrill has been their most productive hitter this side of Jurickson Profar. Average, on-base, ISO, K%. It doesn’t matter. It’s either Profar or Merrill atop the Dads’ leaderboard.

We can also throw the context over to rookies with at least 300 plate appearances. FanGraphs has Merrill at a 3.4 fWAR, tops among the class. Only three players have a higher ISO and only three have a lower K%. Three rookies, still, feature a better HardHit% than Merrill’s 43.6 percent rate.

That’s not to say that Merrill’s game has been flawless. You’d like to see more of an approach, for example. Merrill’s 37.0 O-Swing% is the second-highest among the rookie group, and his 4.8 BB% is the second-lowest. One imagines that the approach will gradually improve the longer he stays at the top level. He demonstrated a much more refined approach at various levels of the minors. Nonetheless, it is impressive that he’s been able to post such steady numbers despite being such a free-swinger as a rookie.

We would be remiss not to acknowledge the other side of the ball here, however. Merrill has turned in a Fielding Run Value of five thus far, which sits 19th among 61 qualifying outfielders. His Outs Above Average (also five) sits 15th within that same group. He’s gone about the transition from shortstop seamlessly.

A look at the stat sheet, though, only tells half the story of Jackson Merrill’s 2024. Perhaps a bit more than half. But individual game context helps, too. Merrill has hit a game-tying homer five times in the eighth inning or later this season, including four in the last couple weeks alone. He also sealed a victory on Monday night against Pittsburgh with a diving catch to end a one-run victory. Merrill’s not just a statistical catalyst. He’s shown up in crucial moments during a scorching second-half for San Diego.

 

Merrill Victories

 

There’s some additional second half context we could explore, but it would start to lose the narrative here. Which, as a reminder, is the idea that Jackson Merrill’s rookie breakout is coming at the worst time against the looming award season. He’s not alone in that respect, of course.

Take Roy Oswalt. He went 14-3 in 2001, with a 2.73 ERA. He lost the NL ROY race to Albert Pujols, who hit well over .300 and nearly touched 40 homers in his first year. Tim Raines swiped over 70 bags in his rookie year back in 1981, while hitting over .300. Unfortunately, the original Fernandomania got its start thanks to a 2.48 ERA, 180 K season from Fernando Valenzuela.

Chipper Jones lost the award to Hideo Nomo in 1995 despite 23 home runs as a switch-hitting rookie. He just wasn’t a match for 230+ strikeouts and an ERA lingering around 2.50. Todd Helton is a Hall of Famer now, but he wasn’t a Rookie of the Year in 1998 given the dominance of Kerry Wood.

Of a more recent vintage, Trea Turner’s .342, 33 steal season failed to get him the award over Corey Seager’s .308, 70+ XBH 2016. Generational talent Juan Soto finished as runner-up in 2018 behind other generational talent Ronald Acuña Jr.

It’s interesting to think about the concept of Rookie of the Year races in a general sense. Up and down the list there are top two races that feature two players that were very good, if not better. Other races feature a player who was very good followed by a player who never replicated the success (See: 2015 Kris Bryant vs. Matt Duffy).

 

The Merrill-ity of End-of-Year Awards

 

The unfortunate thing for us is that there isn’t really a precedent by which to measure the particular race of Paul Skenes vs. Jackson Merrill. And let’s be clear: that is the race. Due respect to Masyn Winn or Shota Imanaga, these are the two contenders for the award. More specifically, though, there isn’t anything to suggest that a pitcher has the edge over a position player or vice versa. Pujols beat Oswalt. Valenzuela beat Raines. Wood beat Helton. Ichiro Suzuki bested C.C. Sabathia. We’ve seen each baseball archetype prevail in different years, with no indication of why one may have been favored.

Cultural context, though, likely tells us what we need to know.

Skenes was the no. 1 overall pick in 2023. No starting pitcher is averaging more velocity than Skenes’ 98.9 MPH on his fastball. Only two pitchers with at least 90 IP have a higher K% in a starting role than his 32.3 percent figure. And his 5.6 BB% sits as one of the 16 best marks among that group. This is all after transitioning to pitching full-time within the last couple of years. He’s only won six games on an up-and-down Pittsburgh squad, but he’s a transcendent talent in a game not known for marketing their superstars.

That’s not to say that some weird factor — like pitcher wins! — could lead to some hair-splitting among voters. Which could, in turn, lead to an upset in the NL Rookie of the Year race. But such an outcome, even with the erraticism of baseball writers, seems far-fetched.

What that shouldn’t do is discount the season that Jackson Merrill has turned in for San Diego. Not only has he thrived as a rookie at the highest level, but he’s done so while learning an entirely new position on a roster that lost Juan Soto and has been without key bats for much of the year. Unfortunately for him, it just came at a terrible time given the force of nature on the bump in the Steel City.

Perhaps the most interesting piece, however, will be the retrospective a few years down the line. Will we look at this as one of those races? Where it was two marquee players duking it out? Where no one remembers who won, but is able to appreciate the high-level talent on each side of the ball? Given the pedigree and trajectory of each of the two players, I’d say so.