At the end of the regular season, members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) cast their votes for the major end-of-year awards. As is my custom, I keep the actual vote I have a secret (this year, I\u2019m tasked with voting for the National League Rookie of the Year award), but put together fake ballots for the other major postseason player awards the BBWAA hands out.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m pretty sure the winners of all of these awards, including the one I have, are pretty obvious right now, so forgive me if this column doesn\u2019t shock you. There was only one award where I could make a strong case for someone other than the heavy favorite at the moment, but putting that other player first would have just been contrarian, not backed up by the facts.<\/p>\n
Anyway, these votes don\u2019t count. At all. But here\u2019s how I would have voted for American League and National League MVP and Cy Young, and the American League Rookie of the Year.<\/p>\n
American League MVP<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think this is much of a debate at all. If it weren\u2019t for the facts that a) Aaron Judge has won this before, including last year and b) Cal Raleigh is a great story and easy fan favorite with the best nickname of any current MLB player, Judge would probably win this in a runaway. (And maybe he will anyway.) But I suppose people need something to write and argue about.<\/p>\n
I think Raleigh is closer to Bobby Witt Jr. than he is to Judge, and WAR calculations show the same. None of this is a knock on Raleigh\u2019s historic season, just a discussion of this specific award; there\u2019s no shame in being the second-best player in the league.<\/p>\n
Judge, by the way, is one season away from achieving Hall of Fame eligibility, and he\u2019s already over 60 bWAR, with two MVPs on his shelves and a third coming soon, plus the Rookie of the Year award and more than 360 homers. At this point, he\u2019s built a Hall of Fame-worthy resume other than the lack of length to his career. He\u2019s also just 3 WAR behind Dave Winfield among all position players 6 feet 6 or taller. This is his fourth 8-WAR season, his fourth 50-homer season and his fifth season with an OBP over .400.<\/p>\n
My preseason pick for the award, Julio Rodr\u00edguez, had a mediocre first half, but has salvaged his season with plus defense in center and a power surge since the All-Star break. He\u2019s hit more homers in the second half than he had in the (longer) first. I\u2019d also like to point out that I predicted a breakout season for Maikel Garcia \u2026 in 2024. Can I get partial credit for that?<\/p>\n
I was also surprised that no Orioles hitter made the list, just in the sense that we all assumed that the Orioles\u2019 offense would carry them this year, maybe right back to the playoffs, and while their pitching hasn\u2019t been very good, the lineup let them down just as much, with only Gunnar Henderson (5.1 bWAR) worth even three wins above replacement.<\/p>\n
American League Cy Young<\/p>\n
LHP<\/p>\n<\/td>\n
Tigers<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
LHP<\/p>\n<\/td>\n
Red Sox<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
LHP<\/p>\n<\/td>\n
Yankees<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
RHP<\/p>\n<\/td>\n
Astros<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
RHP<\/p>\n<\/td>\n
Mariners<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
I see this as Tarik Skubal in a rout, and Garrett Crochet as No. 2 as some lesser sort of rout, and then Max Fried or Hunter Brown in either order.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s about as much suspense here as there is in an episode of NCIS. I know Trevor Rogers\u2019 season grades out especially well via Baseball-Reference\u2019s ERA-based WAR calculation, but not only is that dependent on a fluky-low BABIP, but also he\u2019s only thrown 106 innings, and I\u2019d rather use the last spot or two here on someone who handled what passes for a starter\u2019s workload today and pitched nearly as well.<\/p>\n
There have been only 47 six-WAR seasons by left-handed pitchers since the start of 2000, according to Baseball-Reference, and Skubal has two of them, as many as David Price or Blake Snell (who also won Cy Young Awards both times he did it).<\/p>\n
American League Rookie of the Year<\/p>\n
1B<\/p>\n<\/td>\n
Athletics<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
OF<\/p>\n<\/td>\n
Red Sox<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
SS<\/p>\n<\/td>\n
Athletics<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Nick Kurtz should win this unanimously \u2014 he\u2019s been excellent, no one else has been close, and he even has the four-homer game to add an exclamation point to his season.<\/p>\n
I slid Roman Anthony over Jacob Wilson for producing nearly as much value in only about 60 percent of the playing time, plus Anthony doesn\u2019t play half his games in a Little League ballpark.<\/p>\n
Also, shoutout to Rule 5 pick Shane Smith, whose rookie season for the White Sox has been worth 1.7 fWAR; he\u2019s one of four AL rookie pitchers to throw at least 100 innings this year, led by Will Warren. Few Rule 5 picks turn into valuable long-term pieces for the drafting club, but Smith seems like he\u2019ll be a big help to the White Sox as they continue to build.<\/p>\n
National League MVP<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t even that close; Shohei Ohtani would win the award based on his bat alone, and adding his pitching value just feels like piling on.<\/p>\n
Far more interesting is the clear No. 2 vote here, Diamondbacks\u2019 shortstop Geraldo Perdomo, who came into 2025 with 4.8 career fWAR in the majors, and is at 6.9 this season alone as of Monday morning. He\u2019s more than doubled his career home run total as well. In addition, he\u2019s posted career bests in average, OBP, slugging and stolen bases, and he continues to play plus defense at short.<\/p>\n
The showing from Arizona\u2019s lineup this year just underscores to me that they were right to go after Corbin Burnes in free agency; if he\u2019s healthy this year, they\u2019re probably ahead of the Padres and making the Dodgers sweat at this point.<\/p>\n
Turner went from -12 Runs Above Average on defense over the last two years combined to +11 this year, at age 32, which is certainly unusual. I\u2019m more than willing to believe his defense improved, but that\u2019s a huge jump for a player his age and I\u2019m guessing there\u2019s some noise in there too. (Bryson Stott has played short in Turner\u2019s absence and has looked every bit as good; with those two already in Philadelphia and Aidan Miller probably a half-season away, it\u2019ll be very interesting to see how the Phillies handle their middle infield in the coming years.)<\/p>\n
That defensive noise is why I have S\u00e1nchez as the actual Phillies MVP this year, not Turner, and not Kyle Schwarber, whose contract-year push has produced a career year but who is still a DH who can\u2019t add any defensive value and loses some on positional value.<\/p>\n
National League Cy Young<\/p>\n
Cristopher S\u00e1nchez is closer to Paul Skenes than how (I think) the public perception has them; as of Monday afternoon, Skenes leads S\u00e1nchez in fWAR by 0.4 and bWAR by 0.2. Skenes has the advantage in ERA, about 0.6 runs, and a smaller advantage in FIP, but S\u00e1nchez has thrown the equivalent of another start and pitches in a slightly less favorable home park. (PNC Park is the hardest park in which to homer right now, in fact, with a home run park factor of 76 per Statcast.) I bet Skenes wins the award unanimously, even though their values are nearly identical \u2014 certainly too close to call based solely on WAR.<\/p>\n
Logan Webb is leading the NL in innings again, and is likely to be the only MLB starter to reach 200 innings this year \u2014 and he\u2019s even taken his performance up a notch, with the best strikeout rate of his career, although it is (coincidentally, I assume) accompanied by the highest BABIP allowed of his career. He\u2019s so underrated at this point, and probably will be until the Giants get him back to the postseason.<\/p>\n
Jes\u00fas Luzardo was one of the considerations; he\u2019s fourth in the NL in fWAR, but that metric bails Luzardo out for his career-long issues with runners on base. This year, he\u2019s allowed a .218\/.268\/.319 line with the bases empty, but a .287\/.364\/.441 line from the stretch.<\/p>\n
(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen \/ The Athletic; Photos: Brandon Slotter, Justin K. Aller, Daniel Shirey \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the end of the regular season, members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) cast their…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":250948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1279,1280,1276,1281,1271,1274,5048,1282,1283,1885,2382,1284,1285,2502,1286,4247,1287,1266,1305,2228,5055,2083,1886,1306,1275,1288,62,3692,1289,1278,1290,67,132,68,1291],"class_list":{"0":"post-250947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-arizona-diamondbacks","9":"tag-atlanta-braves","10":"tag-baltimore-orioles","11":"tag-boston-red-sox","12":"tag-chicago-cubs","13":"tag-chicago-white-sox","14":"tag-cincinnati-reds","15":"tag-cleveland-guardians","16":"tag-colorado-rockies","17":"tag-detroit-tigers","18":"tag-houston-astros","19":"tag-kansas-city-royals","20":"tag-los-angeles-angels","21":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","22":"tag-miami-marlins","23":"tag-milwaukee-brewers","24":"tag-minnesota-twins","25":"tag-mlb","26":"tag-new-york-mets","27":"tag-new-york-yankees","28":"tag-oakland-athletics","29":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","30":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","31":"tag-san-diego-padres","32":"tag-san-francisco-giants","33":"tag-seattle-mariners","34":"tag-sports","35":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","36":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","37":"tag-texas-rangers","38":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","39":"tag-united-states","40":"tag-unitedstates","41":"tag-us","42":"tag-washington-nationals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}