Jackson Merrill was named runner-up for National League Rookie of the Year on Monday, an unsurprising revelation that still brought some disappointment for the San Diego Padres.
Had Merrill won the award, the Padres would have received an additional 2025 draft pick after the first round through Major League Baseball’s Prospect Promotion Incentive (PPI). Instead, Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates was announced as Rookie of the Year after pitching as well as anyone in the majors from the time he debuted in May. And, instead, the Padres will get no draft-related compensation after promoting Merrill on Opening Day and watching the shortstop-turned-center-fielder flourish for seven full months.
The PPI was introduced before the 2022 season to encourage teams to call up top prospects for Opening Day who are deemed big-league-ready or close to it. Since then, the Seattle Mariners, Baltimore Orioles and Arizona Diamondbacks have netted extra draft picks through the program by putting eventual Rookie of the Year winners on Opening Day rosters. (The Pirates did not receive a PPI pick because Skenes didn’t join the big-league roster until May.)
Those three picks ranged from 29th overall to 32nd overall. Their average bonus value was appraised at $2.85 million. These are not insignificant rewards. In 2021, the Padres drafted Merrill with the 27th pick and signed him for an under-slot bonus of $1.8 million. They used some of the savings to sign second-rounder James Wood, who, like, Merrill, soon emerged as a top prospect.
In 2024, Merrill exemplified how the PPI should work. He reported to the Peoria Sports Complex in February with no experience above Double A and, aside from a couple of travel ball games when he was 12 years old, no history of playing center field. He nevertheless earned his way into manning that position on Opening Day. As someone who had never traveled outside the U.S., he made his big-league debut in Seoul, South Korea. Then, he continued to show an uncommon ability to adapt.
Jackson Merrill made 148 starts in center field for the Padres despite never playing the position in the minors. (Orlando Ramirez / Getty Images)
Merrill, who turned 21 in April, led all major-league rookies in FanGraphs wins above replacement (5.3), OPS (.826), batting average (.292), hits (162), extra-base hits (61) and RBIs (90). After the collective disappointment of 2023, he led a resurgent Padres team in WAR, the National League in outfield assists (8), and the majors in game-tying or go-ahead home runs in the ninth inning or later (5). He delivered a .314/.349/.596 slash line after appearing in the All-Star Game. During the same stretch, the Padres vaulted from hovering around .500 to securing the NL’s top wild-card berth.
In short, Merrill did more than enough to earn what would have been San Diego’s first Rookie of the Year since Benito Santiago in 1987 — along with a valuable draft pick for his organization.
His primary shortcoming might have been that he did not hit, say, 30 home runs. (Merrill finished with 24, tied for most among rookies.) That might have been enough to sway more members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America to Merrill’s side. Skenes received 23 of 30 possible first-place votes. Only two voters based in the Eastern Time Zone put Merrill’s name atop their ballots.
Skenes, to his credit, was borderline historic in the opportunities he did get. His 1.96 ERA was the lowest by a rookie with at least 20 starts since 1912. It also was the lowest by any major-league starter this year after May 10. Skenes trailed in Fangraphs WAR, but he outpaced Merrill in Baseball-Reference’s version, which relies on runs allowed per nine innings rather than Fielding Independent Pitching, a more predictive stat.
Merrill remains eligible to earn future draft picks for the Padres. A PPI-eligible player who accrues a full year of service and then wins Rookie of the Year or finishes top three in MVP voting (before qualifying for salary arbitration) would net his team an extra pick. Bobby Witt Jr., who spent all season vying with Aaron Judge for the American League MVP award, appears poised to do so for the Kansas City Royals. Merrill can produce the same result for the Padres with a top-three MVP finish in either 2025 or 2026.
Still, Merrill’s 2024 season, including the Padres’ subsequent lack of draft-pick compensation, might very well go down as a case that the PPI parameters should be reconsidered ahead of future collective bargaining agreements. WAR is one data point in favor of such an argument. By FanGraphs’ metric, Merrill finished seventh among National League position players, behind William Contreras and ahead of Bryce Harper.
(Photo: Brandon Sloter / Getty Images)