2025 MLB Awards: Picks for MVP, Cy Young and more

While the usual suspects dominated in 2025, this past year also saw breakout seasons from several star players.

With the 2025-26 MLB offseason underway and the World Series wrapped up, award announcements are the only piece left to an incredible 2025 season, with winners for the league’s most coveted awards set to be revealed this coming week.

From a glance on paper, this season would perhaps appear to be unremarkable for a casual sports fan out of touch with baseball – the Los Angeles Dodgers repeated as World Series champions while the faces of the league, Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, remain the two best players in the game.

Beyond a sensational World Series that will be remembered as one of the best of this generation, this season brought plenty more to offer outside of video game-like seasons from Judge and Ohtani, which is essentially to be expected at this point.

The biggest of these storylines was none other than Seattle Mariners’ switch-hitting catcher Cal Raleigh setting a record for home runs in a season by a catcher with 60, as Seattle came the closest they had ever been to the Fall Classic in a seven-game ALCS loss.

AL MVP: Aaron Judge, OF, New York Yankees

As much as I really want to say that Cal Raleigh was the MVP with his incredible season that was undoubtedly vital to the Mariners’ success, it feels impossible to ignore Aaron Judge’s continued offensive dominance.

While Raleigh led all of baseball with 60 jacks, Judge’s .331 batting average was a full 20 points higher than the next closest player across the league, with baseball’s most-feared slugger also emerging as the only one unfazed by a scarcity of .300 hitters.

Judge’s 9.7 WAR and 1.144 OPS were both far and away the best in baseball, all while still managing 53 home runs itself.

I have long had a soft spot for the Mariners, I love the Big Dumper and I honestly can’t stand the Yankees. But with Raleigh’s slash line of .247/.359/.589/.948 next to Judge’s .331/.457/.688/1.144, it feels like extreme mental gymnastics to convince myself that Raleigh had a better season because of seven more home runs.

NL MVP: Shohei Ohtani, P/DH, Los Angeles Dodgers

While this looked like a two-way race at the midway point of the season between Ohtani and Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, PCA’s disastrous second half of the season allowed perhaps the game’s greatest player of all-time to safely emerge as the favorite for the award.

After not pitching at all during the 2024 season, Ohtani returned to the mound this year and dazzled opposing hitters with a 2.87 ERA across 47 innings and 14 starts, with a measly nine walks to 62 strikeouts.

Though Ohtani’s work on the mound was limited, he was anything but at the plate. Ohtani smacked a career-best 55 home runs while leading all of baseball with 146 runs scored alongside a .282/.392/.611/1.014 slash line.

While Juan Soto had a great year for the disappointing Mets and Kyle Schwarber’s 56-home run campaign was remarkable, this ultimately doesn’t feel like much of a debate.

AL Cy Young Award: Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers

With his name swirling in possible trade rumors as he enters his final year under Tigers control, Skubal appears to be excellently lined up to take home his second consecutive AL Cy Young Award.

Though falling short of the 200 innings mark that was commonplace for starters just over a decade ago, Skubal remained perhaps the game’s finest pitcher in 2025. The southpaw led the AL with a 2.21 ERA, surrendering just 33 walks while fanning 241 hitters in 195.1 innings of work.

Skubal’s 187 ERA+ and 2.45 FIP were both tops in the AL, while his miniscule 0.891 WHIP served as the best mark in all of baseball.

While Crochet’s 205.2 innings and MLB-best 255 strikeouts were wildly impressive, Skubal retained his across-the-board dominance from last season into 2025, and remains the AL’s finest hurler.

NL Cy Young Award: Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh Pirates

Though this season was undoubtedly deeply disappointing as a whole for the Pirates, none of that disappointment could possibly be directed towards Paul Skenes, who continued his rapid ascent to be perhaps the game’s best arm in 2025.

While his 10-10 record would turn off the Cy Young voters of yesteryear, Skenes’ microscopic 1.97 ERA was the best in all of baseball, coming alongside 42 walks and 216 strikeouts in 187.2 innings.

Skenes’ 217 ERA+ blew his contemporaries out of the water as the best in MLB, while his 2.36 FIP and 0.5 home runs per nine innings ratio were also tops in baseball.

While Cristopher Sánchez registered a slightly higher WAR than Skenes and Yoshinobu Yamamoto turned in a stellar sophomore effort, it’s hard to look at Skenes and not see the game’s ace of the present and future.

AL Rookie of the Year: Nick Kurtz, 1B, Athletics

The A’s are spoiled in this category, featuring both the near-certain winner in Kurtz and a shortstop of the future who turned in an All-Star campaign himself in Jacob Wilson.

While Wilson’s season likely could have nabbed the Rookie of the Year in many other seasons, Kurtz turned in one of the most impressive offensive seasons from a rookie arguably of all-time. In 117 games, Kurtz slashed .290/.383/.619/1.002, registering a 173 OPS+ with 36 home runs and 86 RBI.

In a league where offense is relatively hard to come by, Kurtz showcased the skills of an exceedingly complete hitter, displaying the ability to hit the ball to all parts of the field while putting up a 51.3% hard-hit rate, more than 10 points above the league average.

While the A’s have an unbelievably bright future with their young offensive corps, Kurtz broke out as perhaps the centerpiece of the bunch with a Rookie of the Year campaign that is likely to receive a handful of MVP votes as well.

NL Rookie of the Year: Cade Horton, SP, Chicago Cubs

In what could be the closest vote of the major award races, it’s easy to see this award going to the other two finalists in Isaac Collins of the Milwaukee Brewers and Drake Baldwin of the Atlanta Braves, both of whom turned in excellent rookie campaigns.

Doing my best to disregard my bias as a Cubs fan, I give Horton the edge for this award mainly due to value, as he played a vital role in the Cubs weathering a prolonged poor offensive stretch as a team to navigate the North Siders to their first playoff berth in a full season since 2018.

For the season, Horton’s numbers are impressive enough – an 11-4 record with a 2.67 ERA, 33 walks and 97 strikeouts across 118 innings of work, managing a 144 ERA+ and 1.085 WHIP. Yet the young righty was even more impressive when looking at his second half.

While the Cubs offense went dark, Horton was lights out himself, compiling an unbelievable 1.03 ERA with an 8-1 record across 61.1 innings in 12 starts. Horton yielded just three home runs in this time while posting a minute 0.783 WHIP, with his second-half run drawing comparisons to Jake Arrieta’s historic stretch in 2015.

Collins’ 118 OPS+ with 22 doubles and nine home runs is nothing to sneeze at, but it also came in a lineup with plenty of other weapons finding their stride late in the season. While Drake Baldwin delivered an excellent 126 OPS+ with solid defense and 19 home runs for the Braves, it ultimately came to a team that finished outside of playoff contention.

AL Manager of the Year: John Schneider, Toronto Blue Jays

Even recognizing that this is a regular season award, completely ignoring the Blue Jays coming inches away from winning the World Series, it still feels like Schneider is a fairly clear choice.

This is not to diminish the work of Dan Wilson and Stephen Vogt for the Mariners and Guardians respectively – though I think everyone tuned into the ins and outs of baseball would not be shocked to have learned at the start of the year that both those clubs would make the postseason.

The same can’t be said for the Blue Jays, who were coming off a 74-88 season and were expected to be near the bottom of the AL East. In addition to getting incredible campaigns from stars like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and George Springer, Schneider was able to push the right buttons and get the most out of emerging role players as well.

Vogt deserves tons of credit for navigating the Guardians through a feverish September comeback en route to the division crown – but nobody could have be seen this version of the Blue Jays coming, and Schneider deserves a healthy portion of credit.

NL Manager of the Year: Pat Murphy, Milwaukee Brewers

Yeah, it pains me to say it, but how could it not be?

This finally felt like the season the Brewers would take a step back, seemingly solidified after trading away Devin Williams in the offseason – yet Pat Murphy’s sophomore effort proved this team was only getting started – at least in the regular season.

Despite not boasting a long list of household names, the Brewers made their name as a scrappy, contact-first team with excellent defense across the diamond. While it’s no surprise that players like Christian Yelich, William Contreras and young star Jackson Chourio had great seasons, the consistency up and down the lineup seen in Brice Turang, Caleb Durbin and others spoke to Murphy’s ability.

Though it didn’t amount to the postseason success they were clamoring for, it’s clear that the Brewers were incredibly bought in as a unit and getting the most out of each player to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Andrew Vaughn’s resurgence with the team after being cut by the Chicago White Sox prevails as perfect proof of Murphy’s Midas touch with role players.

After two straight seasons of barreling through expectations, Pat Murphy has made one thing clear – it’s a mistake to count out this version of the Brewers.