Timing of Jackson Chourio's breakout uniquely painful for Brewers fans

In just a few days, Major League Baseball will be crowning their Rookies of the Year in the American and National Leagues. The Milwaukee Brewers have a rich history of solid rookies, but it's been a while since we've seen such a dominant rookie like Jackson Chourio...who won't win the hardware at the end of the year.

On November 18 at 6 PM EST, one of Paul Skenes (Pirates) or Jackson Merrill (Padres) will be crowned as the NL Rookie of the Year. Whichever one of these two doesn't win will finish second, while Chourio will have to settle for a third place finish.

The toughest part for Brewers fans to swallow is that Chourio would have won the award in virtually any other season, but the competition in 2024 was off the charts.

Jackson Chourio's award-worthy rookie season will come up just short

After he was inked to a long-term extension before making his big league debut, Chourio had the weight of the world on his shoulders once the regular-season rolled around. He stumbled out of the gate, hitting just .206 in April/March and then .215 in May before Chourio really took off once the summer months rolled around.

He went on to hit .315 in June, .317 in July and then .321 in August before a 26-game showing in Sept/Oct resulted in a .263 average.

On the entire year, Chourio recorded 29 doubles, 21 home runs, 22 stolen bases in 29 attempts and 79 RBI. He hit .275 with a .791 OPS and 117 OPS+ while also finishing in the 89th percentile in OAA and 81st in Arm Value per Baseball Savant. He's about as well-rounded of a player as you'll find in the game today ... and he's still only 20 years old.

Here's where Chourio ranked amongst qualifying rookies in both the whole league and specifically the NL. It's hard to argue that he'd have a legitimate case for ROTY in any other year if it weren't for the stiff competition he's facing in this year's race.

In multiple categories (especially batting average, OBP and wRC+), Chourio was beat on the leaderboards by multiple "qualifying" rookies who appeared in under 100 games. There's no chance any of them would receive serious consideration in the voting like Chourio, who played a full season of games, would.

Through and through, Chourio was one of the most complete rookies in the game this season, but he's going to come up just short in the ROTY voting behind two other deserving candidates. Multiple All-Star Games and high finishes in MVP voting over the coming years will certainly make salty Brewers fans from this season feel a little bit better.

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