Morning Rundown: Paul Skenes wins Rookie of the Year, Pirates make minor league signing
Skenes wins Rookie of the Year, Pirates sign reliever to minor league deal
To the surprise of almost no one, Paul Skenes was named the 2024 NL Rookie of the Year on Monday, beating out San Diego Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill.
Skenes, the former first overall pick in 2023, received 23 of the 30 first-place votes.
There isn’t much more we can add to Skenes’ fantastic and historic rookie season. Despite not playing the entire season in the majors, he was still named to the All-Star game and even started.
He has the chance to add to it, as Skenes is also a finalist for the Cy Young as well. That will be a little more of an uphill climb, but regardless, it's a testament to his overall season to be recognized already as a rookie.
Tuesday, the Manager of the Year awards will be announced, and the Cy Young will be announced on Wednesday.
The deadline to add Rule 5 eligible players to the 40-man is today. Adding Nick Yorke and Billy Cook during the season took some of the excitement out of it, as the options are a lot more limited now.
Ethan, Nola, and WTM went over their thought process and if they would add anyone to the 40-man roster in yesterday’s feature.
I’ll have my standalone feature going over some notable names and who I would protect.
According to Ari Alexander, the Pirates have signed right-handed pitcher Yerry Rodriguez to a minor league deal with an invite to Spring Training.
Rodriguez, 27, has an 8.17 career ERA in 36.1 innings in the majors with the Blue Jays and Rangers. He pitched in 16 games last year and posted an 8.72 ERA with 17 strikeouts and 13 walks in 21.2 innings.
Statcast credits him with a four-seam, slider, and change-up.
Support the site by becoming a paid member, and get access to all of our premium content, including our Top 25 list with complete player write-ups and video breakdowns, which come out weekly.
It will also give access to my player feature articles from on-site trips.
We have monthly and yearly plans available, with the latter costing an average of $4.16/month.
I have access to the Athletic, courtesy of a New York Times subscription. I realize that reading the comments section to any article of any kind on public media is not the greatest use of time, but I made the mistake of reading the comments to the Paul Skenes wins NL RoY article. The wailing of Padres fans on behalf of Jackson Merrill was beyond belief. All the usual arguments: he played every day; the Padres made the playoffs thanks to him; the vote reflected east coast bias (!?!); the Pirates record was the same with Skenes as without him in 2023 so he wasn’t valuable. The biggest collection of whining I’ve read in a long time.
There was some pushback, mainly around all the objective metrics favoring Skenes as well as the historic nature of his season. And as someone pointed out, if Cherington called up Preller and offered Skenes for Merrill straight up, how long would it take to Preller to accept? A nano second.
Well deserved, Mr. Skenes.
Nice seeing him and the Livvy at the Steelers/Ravens game. They really seem to enjoy the 'Burgh.
Skenes is going to lead the way when the Bucco's bust into October in 2025.