Brewers finalists for 2024 Manager, Rookie of the Year awards come as no surprise

The Milwaukee Brewers have a pair of finalists for 2024 BBWAA awards and they come as no surprise. MLB announced the finalists for the awards on Monday night and the winners of the awards will be announced next week.

First year manager Pat Murphy led the Brewers to a 93-69 record despite losing his two top starting pitchers in Corbin Burnes (trade) and Brandon Woodruff (injury) and his top reliever Devin Williams before the season. Then losing several more pitchers to injury during the season, losing Garrett Mitchell for half the year, then losing Christian Yelich, and playing a ton of rookie and second year players. Through all the challenges, expectations for the Brewers were low, making the 93 win season a surprise and a massive success.

Because of Murphy's efforts, he was named a finalist for NL Manager of the Year. The other two finalists were Mike Shildt of the Padres and Carlos Mendoza of the Mets.

Rookie Jackson Chourio entered the league in 2024 with a lot of pressure to perform well. He signed a historic eight year, $82MM contract extension the previous offseason before even making his MLB debut, a record high guarantee for such a player. The Brewers were placing a big bet on their future that Chourio would pan out. It appears they have bet correctly.

Pat Murphy and Jackson Chourio named end of year awards finalists and rightly so

Chourio struggled the first two months of the season, hitting just .210/.254/.327 with five home runs at the end of May. From June 1st through the rest of the season, Chourio hit .303/.358/.525 with 25 doubles, 16 homers, and 15 stolen bases.

His torrid stretch over the final four months of the season vaulted him into Rookie the Year contention, where he has been named a finalist along with Jackson Merrill of the Padres and Paul Skenes of the Pirates.

Chourio is the youngest player in MLB history to have a 20 HR/20 SB season, which should provide a major boost to his candidacy. He set numerous franchise and MLB records throughout the season given his age and performance. However, Merrill had some better overall stats while Skenes was the NL's All Star starter in a dominant campaign with a sub-2.00 ERA.

Murphy and Chourio are deserving finalists for these awards and both have strong cases to win them. It might be an uphill battle for Chourio given the dominance and notoriety of Skenes and the consistency of Merrill. Murphy, though, is considered by many to be the favorite to win Manager of the Year.

The winner of the NL Rookie of the Year will be announced on Monday, November 18th. The winner of the NL Manager of the Year award will be announced on Tuesday, November 19th.