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Chris Sale Wins National League Cy Young Award

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Braves left-hander Chris Sale has been named the National League Cy Young Award winner for 2024, per an announcement from the Baseball Writers Association of America. Zack Wheeler of the Phillies finished in second place with Paul Skenes of the Pirates in third place.

The award is the final cherry on top of a remarkable comeback season for Sale. He had a run from 2010 to 2018 of being one of the best pitchers in the majors, but struggled in 2019 and then was in the injury wilderness for quite a while. Due to various ailments, including Tommy John surgery, he only pitched about 150 innings total from 2020 to 2023.

The Red Sox flipped him to Atlanta almost a year ago, in December of 2023. The move was seen as risky at the time, as Sale was going into his age-35 season and was several years removed from his prime.

On top of that, Atlanta sent Vaughn Grissom to Boston in the deal, a notable prospect who still had years and years of cheap control. In return, they were getting just one year of Sale, though they did sign him to an extension that covered 2024 and 2025 with a club option for 2026. That extended their window of control over him, but at a fairly hefty price point: $38MM for the two guaranteed years plus $18MM for the option.

But so far, the deal has been incredibly lopsided in favor of Atlanta. Grissom was injured for much of 2024 and didn’t perform well while healthy. For Atlanta, most of their key contributors got hurt this year while Sale ironically stayed healthy, in spite of his recent track record.

Sale finished the season having made 29 starts and thrown 177 2/3 innings, allowing 2.38 earned runs per nine. He struck out 32.1% of batters faced, only gave out walks 5.6% of the time and got grounders on 44.8% of balls in play. He won the pitching triple crown by leading the National League in ERA, wins and strikeouts. His tally of 6.4 wins above replacement from FanGraphs was easily the most in the majors this year, with Tarik Skubal of the Tigers second at 5.9 fWAR.

Despite his previous dominance, this is actually Sale’s first time taking home the hardware. Per MLB’s Sarah Langs on X, Sale is the first pitcher to finish top five in Cy Young voting in five straight years, fall outside the top five for five straight years immediately after, followed by a return to the top five. He is also (X links from Langs) the first pitcher to have six previous top five finishes and later win the award, in addition to being one of the five oldest pitchers to win for the first time.

Sale got 26 of the first place votes (full vote tallies from the BBWAA), with the other four going to Wheeler, who logged exactly 200 innings over 32 starts with a 2.57 ERA. Skenes already won Rookie of the Year award earlier this week but this further cements what an amazing season he had. Other pitchers getting votes were Dylan Cease, Shota Imanaga, Logan Webb, Michael King, Hunter Greene, Ryan Helsley, Cristopher Sánchez, Reynaldo López, Sean Manaea and Aaron Nola.

Paul Skenes Wins National League Rookie Of The Year, Earns Full Year Of Service Time

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Pirates right-hander Paul Skenes has been voted the National League Rookie of the Year for 2024, the Baseball Writers Association of America announced. Outfielder Jackson Merrill of the Padres finished second while outfielder Jackson Chourio of the Brewers finished third. The Pirates will not earn a PPI bonus pick from this result but Skenes will earn himself a full year of service time despite his late call-up.

Skenes, now 22, has made a quick rise to being one of the top pitchers in the sport. As of a year and a half ago, he was still pitching for Louisiana State University. The Pirates selected him with the first overall pick in the 2023 draft, with many viewing him as about as close to MLB-ready as a draft pick could be.

The Bucs let him get his feet wet as a professional, putting him into five minor league games late in 2023, but never letting him throw more than two innings in any of those. There was some speculation that he could crack the Opening Day roster in 2024 but the Pirates decided to build him up slowly. He was started in Triple-A but with his outings mostly kept around three or four innings.

Despite the kid gloves, Skenes proved it was time to break free, posting a 0.99 earned run average in those minor league outings. That got him promoted to the majors in May, less than a year after being drafted.

His relatively young age and lack of professional experience were easily overwhelmed by his incredible talent. Flashing a triple-digit fastball, a devastating “splinker” and several other pitches in his arsenal, Skenes went on to toss 133 innings over 23 big league starts. In that time, he had a 1.96 ERA, 33.1% strikeout rate, 6.2% walk rate and 51.3% ground ball rate. He produced 4.3 wins above replacement in the eyes of FanGraphs, placing him tenth among all pitchers in the majors this year, despite tossing fewer innings than everyone ahead of him.

The timing of his call-up and this victory are both noteworthy. The collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players features measures designed to encourage top prospects being promoted, the prospect promotion incentive, and also to disincentivize service time manipulation. If a player is on certain top 100 prospect lists and is promoted early enough in the season to earn a full service year, that player can earn his club a bonus draft pick depending on awards voting. On the flip side, if such a player is not promoted early enough to get a full year but managed to finish top two in Rookie of the Year voting regardless, that player earns himself a full year of service retroactively.

Had Skenes been promoted earlier in the year, this award would have netted the Bucs an extra draft pick. But since he was held down into May, they were not eligible to receive that pick. Skenes, on the other hand, will now have a full year of service time. That is significant for him as he is now slated to reach free agency after the 2029 season, his age-27 campaign. Under previous collective bargaining agreements, his free agency would have been one year further into the future.

Merrill was eligible to net the Padres a PPI bonus pick and likely would have done so in any other year. He just had the misfortune of competing against Skenes in the voting. Per the BBWAA, each of the 30 votes had Skenes and Merrill in the top two, 23 of them putting Skenes first and seven of them going for Merrill.

The fact that it was even close indicates how impressive Merrill was this year. A shortstop prospect with no Triple-A experience, Merrill moved to center field just this year to help the Padres fill a vacancy at that spot and hit the ground running. He got into 156 games for the Friars, hitting 24 home runs, stealing 16 bases, slashing .292/.326/.500 and getting strong grades for his glovework.

There was a case that Merrill deserved the award more than Skenes since his performance was over a full season, and clearly a handful of voters did lean that way, but ultimately not enough to get Merrill over the line. Despite the incredibly impressive performance, he comes up just shy of getting the trophy while the Padres come up just shy of getting a bonus draft pick.

The third place votes were split between just two players, as Chourio got 26 of them and Shota Imanaga of the Cubs got the other four. Chourio hit 21 home runs and stole 22 bases, slashing .275/.327/.464 while providing solid outfield defense. Imanaga tossed 173 1/3 innings over 29 starts for the Cubs with a 2.91 ERA. In many other years, those two players could have won the award, but they were instead relegated to nabbing a few third-place votes due to the stunning seasons of Skenes and Merrill. Players like Masyn Winn and Joey Ortiz also had excellent seasons but couldn’t even get any votes due to how strong the competition was in the National League this year.

Pirates Sign Yerry Rodriguez To Minor League Deal

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The Pirates have signed right-hander Yerry Rodriguez to a minor league deal, according to a report from Ari Alexander of KPRC2. Alexander adds that Rodriguez’s deal comes with an invite to big league Spring Training.

Rodriguez, 27, has found playing time in the majors in each of the last three seasons. After spending the earlier years of his minor league career as a starting pitcher, a brutal stint at the Triple-A level in 2021 caused him to move to relief, and he posted a solid 4.27 ERA at the level in 2022. Despite that decent figure, he walked an elevated 11.9% of batters faced, though he fanned a solid 27.2% of opponents to make up somewhat for his wildness. Rodriguez’s decent results at the highest level of the minors prompted a call-up to the major leagues, though his first cup of coffee in the majors lasted just one scoreless inning.

The right-hander then began to shuttle between the majors and minors more regularly in 2023, though unfortunately his results took a turn for the worse at both levels. At Triple-A, Rodriguez’s ERA ballooned up to 5.03 though his strikeout (29%) and walk (12%) rates held more less steady relative to the previous year. His results in the majors were nothing short of disastrous, however, as the righty was shelled to the tune of a 7.90 ERA as he surrendered 20 hits and six walks in just 13 2/3 innings of work. Even his strikeout rate dipped to just 22.7%, which while solid enough is not nearly high enough to justify Rodriguez’s wildness.

Those difficulties in 2023 left Rodriguez to enter 2024 in a precarious position. Unfortunately, he didn’t manage to make much of a case for himself with the Rangers this year as he once again struggled in both the major and minor leagues. With the big league club, Rodriguez posted a 6.88 ERA in 17 innings of work this year while walking (11) nearly as many batters as he struck out (12). Meanwhile, his numbers for Triple-A Round Rock were even nearly as bad as he surrendered a 6.08 ERA in 13 1/3 innings. While he struck out an impressive 33.3% of opponents faced, that wasn’t enough to counterbalance a massive 15.2% walk rate.

Rodriguez’s struggled ultimately led the Rangers to ship him to the Blue Jays in late June of this year. With the Jays, Rodriguez found some success at Triple-A in a small sample size as he posted a 1.35 ERA in 6 2/3 frames, but his control problems remained as he walked a whopping nine batters while striking out ten. Those solid results did not translate over to the majors, however, as the right-hander was torched to the tune of a 15.43 ERA in four appearances in the majors for Toronto this year as he surrendered nine hits (including two homers) in just 4 2/3 innings. That led the club to designate him for assignment back in September, leaving him to be outrighted to the minors and eventually elect free agency.

Now that he’s signed on with Pittsburgh, he’ll figure to enter Spring Training with a chance to earn a spot in the Pirates bullpen to open the season. While he’s struggled in terms of results at both the major and minor league levels in recent years, the right-hander does have youth on his side having just celebrated his 27th birthday. What’s more, the righty still possesses high-end stuff including a 96.8mph average on his fastball. If the Pirates can help him work out his serious problems with command, it’s not hard to imagine him being a viable reliever for the club in 2025.

Pirates To Hire Brent Strom As Assistant Pitching Coach

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The Pirates are hiring Brent Strom as an assistant pitching coach, as first reported by Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The veteran coach was dismissed from the lead pitching role with the Diamondbacks at the outset of the offseason.

It comes as something of a surprise that Strom accepted an assistant pitching coach role. He’d been a team’s top pitching voice for more than a decade. The Astros hired him as pitching coach going into the 2014 season. He quickly secured a reputation as one of the sport’s top coaches. Houston had quite a few developmental success stories among their young arms over his eight-year tenure. Arizona hired Strom during the 2021-22 offseason. He held a role on Torey Lovullo’s staff for three years.

Strom will now work alongside pitching coach Oscar Marin in Pittsburgh. (The Bucs also still need to hire a bullpen coach after dismissing Justin Meccage in September.) Marin and Strom will work with one of the sport’s most talented young staffs. Paul Skenes and Jared Jones already look like top-of-the-rotation starters as they go into their second seasons. Mitch Keller is a quality mid-rotation arm who might still have untapped potential. Bailey Falter and Luis Ortiz have the final two rotation spots on paper, though the Bucs could graduate prospects Bubba Chandler and Thomas Harrington before long.

Strom is Pittsburgh’s second notable hire of the day. The Bucs tabbed Matt Hague as hitting coach this morning. The bullpen coach may be the final remaining decision as Derek Shelton builds his 2025 staff.

Pirates To Hire Matt Hague As Hitting Coach

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The Pirates are hiring Matt Hague away from the Blue Jays to fill their vacant hitting coach position, reports Scott Mitchell of TSN. He served as Toronto’s assistant hitting coach in 2024.

Prior to his time on the Blue Jays’ major league staff, Hague served as the hitting coach at three minor league levels in Toronto’s system. The 39-year-old played in parts of three major league seasons  — all with the Jays and Pirates — but only appeared in 43 games and took just 91 plate appearances.

The Pirates drafted Hague in the ninth round back in 2008, and he played in parts of 10 minor league seasons in addition to a season in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball and multiple stints in the Dominican Winter League. Though Hague never got much of a big league look, he posted a career .298/.376/.423 line in nearly 800 Triple-A games.

Hague departs one coaching staff that’s undergoing turnover in the hitting department for another. Toronto parted ways with lead hitting coach Guillermo Martinez in late September and hired David Popkins, who’d been the hitting coach in Minnesota but was also cut loose at season’s end, a few weeks later. The Pirates, meanwhile, dismissed hitting coach Andy Haines back on Oct. 2 after a three-year stint in that role.

Pirates fans looking to learn more about their new hitting coach will want to be sure to read David Laurila’s Q&A with Hague from this past July over at FanGraphs. The former corner infielder spoke thoughtfully about the differences between his perspective as a player and a coach, the ongoing battle hitters face in adapting to ever-changing pitch trends in the industry, and some of the technology he favors in helping hitters prepare for various paths of attack from opponents.

Pirates Receiving Trade Interest In Starting Pitching

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The fact that the Diamondbacks have “more options and more quality,” Sammon and Mooney write, gives them a leg up in trade talks.  The Pirates are another team said to be drawing interest in their pitchers, though since Pittsburgh’s arms are mostly of the younger variety, the Pirates might appeal to teams in a bit of a rebuild stage rather than teams looking for a win-now piece for 2025.  It can also be assumed that the Bucs have pitchers (i.e. Paul Skenes, Jared Jones) who aren’t going anywhere, whereas the D’Backs can be more broadly open to at least listening on any of their starters.

Pirates Decline Option On Marco Gonzales

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The Pirates declined their option on starter Marco Gonzales. There’s no buyout and it would have cost $15MM to keep him around. He’ll miss most or all of next season after undergoing flexor surgery in his throwing elbow. The Bucs also outrighted Ben Heller, Isaac Mattson and Daulton Jefferies off the 40-man roster.

Pittsburgh acquired Gonzales from the Braves in a move that amounted to a small salary dump for Atlanta. The southpaw made three decent starts to begin the year before it was tanked by injury. A forearm strain shelved him between mid-April and the All-Star Break. Gonzales only made four starts to close the month before going back on the injured list — this time with the injury that required surgery.

Gonzales closed the season with a 4.54 earned run average through 33 2/3 innings. He was limited to 10 starts and 50 innings by a forearm strain in 2023 as well. He’s probably looking at minor league offers this winter. The hope is that he’ll be able to recapture the solid back-of-the-rotation form he showed with the Mariners between 2018-22.

Heller, Mattson and Jefferies each made a handful of appearances for the Bucs this year. They all worked in low-leverage relief. None of them found much success in small samples. All three pitchers can elect free agency.

Pirates Claim Trey Cabbage From Astros

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The Pirates are claiming first baseman/corner outfielder Trey Cabbage from the Astros, reports Ari Alexander of KPRC 2 (X link). Neither team has officially announced the move.

Houston had not previously designated Cabbage for assignment. They evidently placed him on waivers in recent days to take him off the 40-man roster. He would’ve qualified for minor league free agency had he gone unclaimed, but Pittsburgh saw enough to give him a 40-man spot.

Cabbage, 27, has played in 67 big league contests over the last two years. He made 22 appearances for the Angels two seasons ago and got into 45 contests with Houston this year. He hasn’t done much offensively, limping to a .209/.245/.331 slash line while striking out 60 times in 147 plate appearances (a 40.8% rate). The swing-and-miss is nothing new, as Cabbage has fanned in more than 30% of his Triple-A plate appearances. He has shown big power and surprising athleticism in his minor league career, though, including a 30-30 showing in the Halos’ system back in 2023.

Pittsburgh hasn’t been able to find an answer at first base in recent seasons. Cabbage isn’t a long-term solution, but he’s a depth flier who still has a minor league option remaining. If the Bucs carry him on the 40-man all winter, they can keep him in Triple-A for another season.

Pirates Claim Tristan Gray

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Infielder Tristan Gray has been claimed off waivers by the Pirates, per an announcement from the Athletics. The A’s also announced that right-hander Austin Adams and infielder Armando Alvarez have been outrighted off the 40-man roster. There was no previous reporting about the three being removed from the roster but it’s a time of year where clubs regularly try to clear roster spots. The A’s tried with these three but the Pirates swooped in to grab Gray.

Gray, 28, was only on the Athletics’ roster for a couple of months, as they claimed him from the Marlins at the end of August. Between those two clubs and the Rays, he has a tiny amount of major league experience, having stepped to the plate 36 times in 17 games. He has a dismal line of .152/.222/.273 though it’s obviously a tiny sample size.

The Bucs are undoubtedly more interested in Gray’s prospect pedigree and minor league numbers. It was actually Pittsburgh that drafted him, selecting him with a 13th-round pick in 2017. His initial stint with the Bucs was short-lived, as he was traded to the Rays in the February 2018 trade that brought Corey Dickerson to Pittsburgh.

He was with the Rays through 2023 but reached free agency after that season and secured a minor league deal with the Marlins. To this point, between his various organizations, he has hit .238/.311/.454 in his minor league career for a 104 wRC+. He is capable of playing all four infield positions.

Gray’s previous tenure in the Pirates’ system predated Ben Cherington being hired as the general manager, but the appeal of grabbing him now is understandable. Gray’s minor league offense has been passable and he can provide the club with depth all around the infield. He is still optionable and doesn’t need to be guaranteed a spot on the active roster.

The Pirates have uncertainty at essentially every infield position. Shortstop Oneil Cruz was recently moved to center field. Third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes has ongoing back problems. First baseman Rowdy Tellez was released late in the 2024 season. Second base was a revolving door this year.

For Adams, this move is effectively an early non-tender. He could have been retained for 2025 via arbitration, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting him for a salary of $1.7MM. This move suggests the A’s weren’t keen at bringing him back at that price.

Adams has regularly posted strong strikeout numbers but often with poor control. He throws his frisbee slider the majority of the time, often missing bats but also missing the strike zone and hitting batters.

He tossed 41 1/3 innings for the A’s this year, allowing 3.92 earned runs per nine. He struck out 27.7% of batters faced but also gave out 23 walks for a 12% clip and hit 13 batters.

Players with at least three years of service time or a previous career outright have the right to elect free agency rather than accept another outright assignment. Adams qualifies on both counts and will likely be officially a free agent soon.

Alvarez, 30, just made his major league debut this year. He was selected by the A’s in June and hit .243/.282/.270 in 39 plate appearances.

His minor league numbers have been better in recent years, as he hit .301/.369/.551 over the 2022-24 seasons for a 127 wRC+. But as a 30-year-old journeyman who just made his MLB debut, the A’s likely didn’t view him as a key building block and bumped him off the roster.

Alvarez doesn’t have three years of service or a previous career outright, but he does have seven years in the minors, so he’ll soon be able to elect minor league free agency.

Daniel Hudson Announces Retirement

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Following the Dodgers’ decisive victory over the Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series last night, veteran reliever Daniel Hudson announced to reporters (including Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register) that he will retire from playing as a champion. The veteran of 15 big league seasons has played for the Dodgers, Padres, Nationals, Blue Jays, Pirates, Diamondbacks, and White Sox throughout his lengthy career.

Hudson, 37, was selected by Chicago in the fifth round of the 2008 draft. Then a starting pitcher, the right-hander was a fast riser to the majors who made his big league debut just one year after being drafted, in 2009. He made just nine appearances for the team that drafted him across two seasons before being shipped to the Diamondbacks in a deal for Edwin Jackson. Hudson slotted into the Diamondbacks rotation down the stretch and put on a dazzling performance for fans in Arizona, with a 1.69 ERA and 3.22 FIP in 11 starts spread across 79 2/3 innings of work.

That dominant late-season performance suggested the Snakes had landed a quality starter ready for a full season’s workload in the majors. The right-hander’s first full season with the Dbacks seemed to support that, as he posted a solid 3.49 ERA while logging 222 innings across 33 starts for the club in 2011. Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse from there. Hudson’s 2012 season saw him post disastrous results through nine starts before going under the knife for Tommy John surgery that July. He’d miss the entire 2013 season while rehabbing and made it back to a big league mound only at the tail end of the 2014 season.

Hudson’s elbow troubles marked the end of his career as a starter, but his time in the majors was just getting started as he began to fashion himself into a reliever. His first season out of the bullpen in Arizona was relatively pedestrian, as the then-28-year-old pitched to a 3.86 ERA in 67 2/3 innings of work while striking out 24.5% of opponents. It was more of the same for the right-hander over the next several years, as he bounced from team to team as a solid but unspectacular middle reliever. From 2015 to 2018, Hudson suited up for Arizona, Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles with rather pedestrian results. His 96 ERA+ was just below league average during that time, and he struck out 23.3% of opponents.

Things changed for Hudson in 2019, however. After latching on with the Blue Jays on a one-year deal, Hudson looked quite good for the rebuilding club in the first half of the season as he posted a solid 3.00 ERA in 48 innings of work. That solid performance was enough to draw interest from the Nationals, who at the time were in a tight race with the Phillies, Brewers, and Cubs for two NL Wild Card spots. The bullpen had been a sore spot for D.C. throughout the year, but Hudson helped to change that with a dominant late-season run that saw him post an eye-popping 1.44 ERA in 24 late-season innings for the Nationals.

That incredible work led Hudson to join closer Sean Doolittle as one of only a handful of trusted pitchers on Dave Martinez’s staff during the postseason. Hudson managed scoreless appearances in seven of his nine outings for the Nationals during that playoff run, highlighted by his save in the NL Wild Card Game against the Brewers to and his scoreless frame of work to close out Game 7 of the World Series and earn the Nats their first World Series championship in club history. After securing his first ring, Hudson remained with the Nationals for two more seasons. After a difficult 2020 campaign, he pitched well enough during the 2021 season to get traded to the Padres down the stretch, though San Diego ultimately missed the postseason.

The final act of Hudson’s career began in 2022 when he signed on to return to the Dodgers. During his second stint in Los Angeles, Hudson was nothing short of electric when on the mound, with a 2.69 ERA a 26.9% strikeout rate when healthy enough to take the mound. Staying healthy proved to be a challenge, however, as ACL and MCL injuries limited the veteran to just 27 1/3 innings of work over the 2022 and ’23 campaigns. He remained with the Dodgers on a minor league deal last winter, however, and was part of the club’s Opening Day bullpen. Now that he was finally healthy, the 37-year-old impressed with a 3.00 ERA in 63 innings of work while collecting ten saves with the Dodgers throughout the year. While a difficult outing in Game 4 of the World Series skewed his overall postseason numbers, Hudson was a generally effective relief arm for the club throughout their playoff run this year, throwing scoreless frames in five of his seven outings en route to his second career championship.

Altogether, Hudson posted a 3.74 ERA (111 ERA+) and a nearly-matching 3.76 FIP over 855 1/3 career innings during the regular season (to go with 21 postseason innings). He won 65 games and saved 43 while striking out 817 batters and appearing in 537 total contests. Those of us at MLB Trade Rumors salute Hudson on a fine career and wish him all the best in whatever comes next for the two-time World Series champion.

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