Trending
At the All-Star break, the one award race that seemed like it might be over was for National League Rookie of the Year.
Not so fast.
A terrific month of August has helped San Diego's Jackson Merrill emerge as the new favorite for the honor, displacing Pittsburgh right-hander Paul Skenes. The flip in the betting odds has been dramatic. Skenes was a -1200 favorite at the break, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. Now it's Merrill who is the pick at -800.
It's not as though Skenes has done anything to lose the award. The 2023 No. 1 overall draft pick is 8-2 with a 2.23 ERA and a 0.95 WHIP. The last-place Pirates aren't pushing him overly hard, but they haven't shut him down either, and it was perfectly reasonable to consider him a huge favorite for Rookie of the Year back in mid-July.
But Merrill, who unlike Skenes has spent the whole season in the big leagues, has made a huge push for a surging San Diego team that is now in wild-card position. In August, he hit .303 with seven home runs and a .969 OPS. After homering again on the first day of September, Merrill is batting .289 with 21 home runs and 79 RBIs.
Skenes still has a solid lead over Merrill in Baseball Reference's version of wins above replacement, but Merrill is ahead in the FanGraphs version.
-- Noah Trister,
The Associated Press