MLB Awards Week results and analysis: Skenes, Gil each win Rookie of the Year

Gil and Wells, both essential rookie contributors to the Yankees’ run to the World Series, excelled with a lot of eyeballs on them all season, and that certainly didn’t hurt their support. Cowser’s role as an every-day player for the playoff-bound Orioles also had a high-visibility context. It feels like that, as much as anything, is why this trio emerged as finalists in a hard-to-separate field.

The emergence of Gil and the gaps he filled in an injury-depleted Yankees rotation were too much to ignore. It was a surprising emergence: Gil is 26, and he debuted in professional baseball way back in 2015 as a 17-year-old in the Minnesota organization. But when you talk about impact, you can conjure up all sorts of ill scenarios for New York had he not led AL rookies with 15 wins, 141 strikeouts and a 3.50 ERA (minimum 10 starts).

The voters got it right, if only because they could not possibly have gotten it wrong.

Here’s how my AXE leaderboard had it:

1. Smith, Guardians (117 AXE)

2. Langford, Rangers (116)

3. (tie) Miller, Athletics (115)

Abreu, Red Sox (115)

Gil, Yankees (115, winner)

6. Wells, Yankees (113, finalist)

7. Cowser, Orioles (111, finalist)

Note: AXE is an index that creates a consensus rating from the leading value metrics (WAR, from FanGraphs and Baseball Reference) and contextual metrics (win probability added and championship probability added, both from Baseball Reference), with 100 representing the MLB average.

ROY must-read:

Bump in the road or ominous sign: Has Luis Gil hit a wall after his red-hot start?

National League Rookie of the Year

Winner: Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh Pirates

Final tally: Skenes 136 (23 first-place votes); Jackson Merrill, Padres, 104 (7); Jackson Chourio, Brewers, 26; Shota Imanaga, Cubs, 4

Experts’ pick: Skenes (8 votes); Merrill (1 vote)

Doolittle’s take: Skenes emerged as the winner of a star-studded NL rookie class that was deep in impact performances put up by high-upside prospects who should only get better as the years progress. It was also a classic debate, one that stirs the passions whether you are driven by traditional approaches or the most current of performance metrics: Can a starting pitcher really produce more value than a position player given the disparity in games played?

It’s a debate mostly settled in the MVP races, where pitchers only occasionally bob up to forefront of the conversation. The one in the NL Rookie of the Year race this season between Skenes, Merrill and, to a lesser extent, Chourio was a classic example.

Sure, Skenes was absolutely dominant; he’s a finalist in the NL Cy Young race, for goodness sake. Still, we’re talking about 23 games. Meanwhile, Merrill’s gifts were on display in 156 contests for the Padres, while Chourio played in 148 games for Milwaukee. Yes, the value metrics are supposed to clarify these comparisons, but, still, how do you weigh that kind of disparity between players with entirely different jobs?

In the end, I’m not sure there’s a right answer to that debate, nor is there a wrong answer to this balloting. Each of the finalists would have been a slam-dunk winner in many seasons. Skenes might very well be the best pitcher in baseball by the time we get to these discussions a year from now, if he isn’t already. In less than a year and a half, he has been the top overall pick in the draft, started an All-Star Game and become a finalist in two of the NL’s major postseason awards.

You can certainly makes cases for Merrill and Chourio. But you can’t really make a case against Skenes, 23 games or not. Since earned runs became official in 1913, Skenes became the fourth pitcher with a strikeout rate of at least 11 per nine innings while posting an ERA under 2. He’s just that much of an outlier.

Here’s how my AXE leaderboard had it:

1. Skenes, Pirates (131 AXE, winner)

2. Merrill, Padres (128, finalist)

3. Chourio, Brewers (123, finalist)

4. Masyn Winn, Cardinals (119)

5. Imanaga, Cubs (117)

ROY must-reads:

Why Pirates called up Paul Skenes now — and why he could be MLB’s next great ace

Ranking MLB’s best rookies: Is Paul Skenes or an outfielder named Jackson No. 1?

American League MVP

Finalists:

Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City Royals

Juan Soto, Yankees

Experts’ pick: Judge (9 votes; unanimous)

Doolittle’s take: While the outcome seems like (and almost certainly is) a no-brainer, don’t let that make you lose sight of the overall dynamic around this award. In a nutshell: This is one of the greatest MVP races ever, in terms of historically elite performances from players in the same league.

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The dominant performances went beyond the finalists. Five AL players posted at least 7.9 bWAR, led by the three MVP finalists, as well as Boston’s Jarren Duran and Baltimore’s Gunnar Henderson, who both finished with higher bWAR totals than Soto. Only once before has the AL had five players produce at that level in the same season — way back in 1912.

While Soto was never far out of the picture, this was a high-octane two-player race for most of the season between the mashing dominance of Judge and the five-tool mastery of the dynamic Witt. Judge won the bWAR battle by a good margin (10.8 to 9.4) and seemed to pull away at the end of the season. Even if you don’t like to think of this in terms of bWAR, it’s hard to look past league-leading totals of 58 homers and 144 RBIs and a third-place .322 batting average, all on the league’s best team.

The real drama surrounding this award is tied to that of the NL: Will we have two unanimous MVP picks? If so, that would be just the second time it’s happened. The first? Last year, when Shohei Ohtani (then with the Angels) and Ronald Acuna Jr. (Braves) pulled it off.

MVP must-reads:

Aaron Judge is the fastest ever to 300 home runs — but how many more will he hit?

Better than Bonds in 2001 and Ruth in 1921? How Aaron Judge’s season stacks up to the best in MLB history

Only Juan Soto can decide if his future is with the Yankees

Francisco Lindor, New York Mets

Ketel Marte, Arizona Diamondbacks

Experts’ pick: Ohtani (9 votes; unanimous)

Doolittle’s take: When the DH became a part of big league baseball back in the 1970s, those who defended it tended to point out how it would allow older superstars to hang around for a few more years. Thus the default image of the DH was the aging, plodding slugger trying to generate occasional glimpses of what he used to be.

Things have changed. Ohtani did not don a baseball glove during a game this season and yet established himself as far and away the most dominant player in the National League. The numbers were staggering: .310/.390/.646, 54 homers, 59 stolen bases. He scored 134 runs and drove in 130, even though 57% of his plate appearances came as the Dodgers’ leadoff hitter.

As with Judge, the intrigue isn’t about whether Ohtani will win, but whether or not he’ll be a unanimous pick. And, let’s face it, there’s not much intrigue about that, either. If Ohtani does it, it’ll be the third time he has been a unanimous selection. No one else has done it even twice.

MVP must-reads:

51 HRs AND stolen bases?! How Shohei Ohtani transformed MLB — again

Breaking down Ohtani’s path to 50/50 — and the historic game that got him there

How Francisco Lindor became the heart and soul of the Mets

American League Cy Young

Finalists:

Seth Lugo, Kansas City Royals

Emmanuel Clase, Cleveland Guardians

Experts’ pick: Skubal (9 votes; unanimous)

Doolittle’s take: Long touted for his upside, Skubal put it all together in 2024, becoming the AL’s most dominant and consistent starting pitcher during the regular season, leading the Tigers to a surprise postseason berth.

Editor’s Picks

2 Related

Lugo becomes the Royals’ rotation representative in the finalist group, honoring one of MLB’s breakout units in 2024, though teammate Cole Ragans might have been just as worthy. Entering the season, Lugo had never qualified for an ERA title, but in his first campaign for Kansas City, he threw 206⅔ innings, going 16-9 with a 3.00 ERA.

Clase struggled in the postseason but the voting took place before that, and it recognized his unusually dominant season, good enough to justify his presence in this group despite his role as a short reliever. In 74 outings, featuring 47 saves, Clase allowed just five earned runs. He’s still a reliever and, thus, a long shot to win the award, but getting this far says a lot. The last reliever to win a Cy Young Award was the Dodgers’ Eric Gagne in 2003.

Cy Young must-read:

It’s Tarik Skubal time: With season on the line, Tigers turn to ‘best pitcher in the world’

National League Cy Young

Finalists:

Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh Pirates

Zack Wheeler, Philadelphia Phillies

Experts’ pick: Sale (8 votes); Wheeler (1 vote)

Doolittle’s take: What an interesting group of finalists this is. Value-wise, it’s a close race.

Wheeler is the constant here, as he’s enjoying a seven-year run as one of the NL’s top starting pitchers. Wheeler is still looking for his first Cy Young and entered the balloting this time around with his best résumé to date. Yet Wheeler is coming up against two pitchers with arguably more compelling — and very different — narratives.

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Skenes is baseball’s ascendant ace. Few pitchers have reached the majors with higher expectations in recent years. He met the hype head-on and, if anything, proved to be even better than we thought. With the innings volume of baseball’s best starters much less than it used to be, it is possible for an elite run preventer to save runs at a clip that puts him among the league leaders during a partial season. It wasn’t Skenes’ fault that he wasn’t called up until the second week of May. All he did after that was post a 1.96 ERA over 23 starts while displaying a remarkable degree of consistency. There wasn’t a true clunker in the bunch.

And yet Sale might have been more dominant if you consider defensive-independent ERA (or FIP), in which Sale’s 2.09 bested Skenes’ 2.45. Also, like Skubal, Sale (18 wins, 2.38 ERA, 225 strikeouts) became the first pitching triple crown winner of his league since 2011. In Sale’s case, he became the first to do it since L.A.’s Clayton Kershaw.

All this from a pitcher who once finished sixth or better in AL Cy Young voting seven straight seasons. He has never won, though, and the last of those seasons was 2018. Sale’s days as a premier starter seemed long gone … and then he did this. That’s a good narrative.

Cy Young must-reads:

Did Chris Sale pitch himself into the HOF this year?

Inside Chris Sale’s third act: From considering walking away to becoming an MLB superteam’s missing piece

The best stuff in baseball? How Paul Skenes is using his pitches to dominate MLB

American League Manager of the Year

Finalists:

A.J. Hinch, Detroit Tigers

Matt Quatraro, Kansas City Royals

Experts’ pick: Quatraro (5 votes); Hinch (3 votes); Vogt (1 vote)

Doolittle’s take: The AL Central had four solid teams in 2024, three more than most thought the division would have, and the three surprise clubs are represented here as finalists.

All of these managers have compelling cases. Hinch guided the Tigers to their second-half surge even after Detroit subtracted at the trade deadline and had to navigate around a depleted starting rotation. He has finished in the top five of balloting four times but has never won.

Vogt, a first-time manager filling the shoes of Cleveland legend Terry Francona, also had to lean on his bullpen because of rotation issues and did so with aplomb.

Yet it’s Quatraro who really stands out, leading a Royals team that lost 106 games in 2023 to the postseason. Kansas City had lineup holes and a constantly evolving bullpen picture, yet Quatraro and his staff found a way to leverage his team’s strengths (rotation, defense, Witt) into an October appearance.

National League Manager of the Year

Finalists:

Carlos Mendoza, New York Mets

Pat Murphy, Milwaukee Brewers

Mike Shildt, San Diego Padres

Experts’ pick: Murphy (6 votes); Mendoza (3 votes)

Doolittle’s take: Mendoza had a fantastic first season in the Mets’ dugout, helping the team overcome a sluggish start and eventually end up facing the Dodgers in the NLCS. He did so with quiet, consistent leadership and that bodes well for his ability to last a long time in one of baseball’s most challenging environments.

Shildt, who won the award in 2019 while with the Cardinals, proved to be a feisty presence on a star-laden team with middling expectations that kept rising as the season progressed.

Murphy’s season is hard to beat. Handed the reins of a big league team for a full season for the first time at 65, Murphy was able to put his imprint on the young Brewers. This was no small feat given the departure last winter of his onetime protege, Craig Counsell, arguably the face of the franchise.

Milwaukee went young, suffered rotation shortages and had a number of moving parts in its lineup. Behind Murphy, the Brewers changed their style of play to better accentuate the athleticism on the roster, won 93 games and cruised to another NL Central title.

Earlier awards

Executive of the Year: Brewers president Matt Arnold named exec of the year

Doolittle’s take: I’ve written a couple of times this year that I think the Brewers might be the best-run organization in baseball right now, so that speaks to how I view the work of Arnold and his staff. I also have a kind of organizational mash-up metric I track during the season that considers things such as injuries, rookie contribution, payroll efficiency and in-season acquisitions, and Milwaukee topped that leaderboard.

And yet it’s somewhat stunning that Kansas City’s J.J. Picollo did not win this honor. He oversaw the team’s leap from 106 losses to the playoffs, using free agency to bolster the roster and staying proactive at the trade deadline (and the August waiver period) to provide essential upgrades that put the Royals over the top. It’s hard to do a better one-season job as a baseball ops chief than what Picollo did this season.

All-MLB: 2024 All-MLB First and Second Team winners

Doolittle’s take: Nobody asked me about these picks, but they read as if they did. I had the same first team. On the second team, I might have opted for Matt Chapman over Manny Machado at third base, but if that’s my one note, the selectors did a heck of a job. Or maybe I did.

Gold Gloves: Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. among 14 first-time Gold Glove winners

Doolittle’s take: For all the uncertainty in making defensive picks, the consensus defensive metric I used more or less mirrored the Gold Glove selections. I would have taken Chourio or Washington’s Jacob Young as one of the NL’s outfielders in place of Ian Happ.