CARLSBAD — All the number-crunching gymnastics and debate about the National League’s Rookie of the Year contenders? It’s wasted math and breath, Fred Lynn said.
Lynn, a nine-time All-Star, the first player to be given the award and be named MVP in the same season as a member of the 1975 Red Sox, said to start engraving.
It’s Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill.
Gloves down.
That in no way diminishes what Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes has done. His triple-digit smoke and dominance made him the NL starter at the All-Star Game.
“(Merrill) wins by a mile,” Lynn, a Carlsbad resident, said over an order of avocado toast Monday. “He’s an everyday player. He would get my vote all day long. Against a starting pitcher? C’mon.
“(Skenes) throws hard, but he affects one game a week. This kid affects every game. It’s not even close in my book. The guy would have to throw like two no-hitters.”
Lynn, a former center fielder who made his big-league debut at age 22, admits he is biased about position players. That in no way dilutes his point, though. Merrill has been reinforcing it nearly nightly.
The 21-year-old’s five game-tying or go-ahead home runs in the eighth inning or later this season is tied with Mel Ott for the second most at 21 or younger since 1900, according to Elias Sports.
Only Frank Robinson, with six, had more.
There’s still seven more weeks remaining in the regular season for Merrill, who was named the National League Player of the Week on Monday.
“That’s pretty heady stuff,” Lynn said. “It tells me he’s not afraid of big moments.”
Lynn played in the major leagues from 1974 to 1990, spending his final season with the Padres. He follows the game and stays involved through his connections with the Red Sox, a mainstay in the franchise’s golden era with Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Rice, Carlton Fish and Dwight Evans.
He said what Merrill the All-Star has done is amplified from his days, given how baseball schedules.
“We played division teams three times each, home and away,” Lynn said. “So after a month or two, you knew the ballparks and pitchers. Now they play everywhere. He’s learning all those parks, all those pitchers.
“You have no time to breathe because every day is a new experience. I’m very impressed with him.”
Especially defensively. Lynn considered himself a defense-first guy, no matter the fact that he hit .298 or higher five times in a six-season stretch and led all of baseball in on-base plus-slugging twice.
He labeled himself a “crasher,” testing the walls during batting practice to see where he could land and spots that could send him to the trainer. He would throw balls off odd corners during pregame, gauging how they would bounce back.
“You have to figure how to play with all the wind in San Francisco,” Lynn said. “Now, he has to figure out Minnesota and all those places he’s never been.”
The fact that he had never played the position before this season? Never played in Triple-A? Barely played in Double-A? Jumping on an uncaged-tiger-of-an-assignment in one of the two most demanding positions, at 20?
If that’s not Rookie of the Year stuff, what is?
“Never playing center, now you’re going to do it at the big-league level, that’s a huge gap,” Lynn said. “There’s so many things you have to know about playing that position. I could write a book on it, just playing center field.
“Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you can’t play.”
Merrill has thrived at a head-scratching level, given his lack of experience and position shuffle. He is in the top three among qualified baseball center fielders in RBIs, average, home runs, hits and OPS.
The only player in front of him in all those categories is Aaron Judge.
“It seems like he’s the real deal,” Lynn said.
Then the veteran outfielder raised a point that resonated. This thing almost wasn’t a thing.
Not immediately, at least.
“It’s the needs of the club and timing,” Lynn said. “If that’s a stacked outfield, if (traded Gold Glove center fielder Trent) Grisham hit .250 instead of .200, he’d still be here. Sometimes you get a break. It’s what you do with it when you get it.
“He’s done something with it.”
Lynn is impressed, down to the mental wiring.
“I love what he says when they ask him about Rookie of the Year,” he said. “(Forget) that, I want to win. That’s very refreshing.”
Debate? What debate?