"I was very surprised" - Joe Musgrove expresses shock at Jackson Merrill’s lowly 7 first-place votes in 2024 NL ROY race

Pittsburgh Pirates flamethrower Paul Skenes was named the 2024 National League Rookie of the Year last week, but San Diego Padres ace Joe Musgrove was surprised that his teammate Jackson Merrill only earned seven first-place votes.

Musgrove did not want to criticize Skenes for getting the honor after his excellent rookie campaign, yet he is convinced that Merrill was more deserving of the award.

Paul Skenes had one of the most dominant campaigns for a rookie pitcher after making 23 starts in the season and finishing with an 11-3 record with a 1.96 ERA and a 0.947 WHIP while racking up 170 strikeouts in just 133 innings.

Meanwhile, Jackson Merrill played solid defense at centerfield despite transitioning from a shortstop during spring training. He batted .292/.326/.500 with a 127 OPS+, 24 home runs, and 90 RBIs while playing 156 games during the regular season.

Musgrove felt that Jackson Merrill was more deserving of the award for his larger volume of work. He offered his thoughts during a video interview with San Diego-based sports broadcaster Marty Caswell.

"I was very surprised to see that he only got seven first-place votes," Musgrove said. "Winning the Sporting News Rookie of the Year is, in my eyes, the most valuable thing you can get. That's voted on by your peers that you play against and by very, very educated baseball people that know the game and see all the details that the average fan or the average writer might miss.

"I don't want to sit here and bash the writers or bash Skenes for winning it. He had an equally amazing season, for a rookie to come up and dominate the league the way he did," Musgrove added."When you look at Rookie of the Year, I think [of] a guy that is playing a premier position and a new position for the first year on a team like the Padres, where you can argue he was a big factor in pushing us into playoff contention."

Paul Skenes bagged 23 first-place votes out of the total 30 to finish comfortably ahead of Jackson Merrill in the final results, with Jackson Chourio of the Milwaukee Braves finishing a distant third.

Injury marred 2024 season for Joe Musgrove

Joe Musgrove has missed large chunks of the past two seasons due to injury (Photo Credit: Imagn)

Joe Musgrove joined the San Diego Padres for a five-year, $100 million deal in 2021 after five years in the MLB with the Houston Astros and the Pittsburgh Pirates. He earned his maiden All-Star selection in 2022 and pitched 181 innings during the regular season, posting a 10-7 record with a 2.93 ERA and 1.083 WHIP.

Although he had a solid start to the 2023 campaign, Joe Musgrove made just 17 starts before his season was cut short due to inflammation in his right shoulder. He was back in the starting rotation for 2024 but had a dreadful opening two months before he was placed on the IL for a bone spur at the start of June.

Following a near two-month spell on the IL, Musgrove returned to the Padres rotation in August. He pitched 50.1 innings in the nine starts since then, holding a 3-1 record with a 2.15 ERA.