COMMENTARY | MLB End-of-Season Award Predictions

American League (AL) Award Winners

Most Valuable Player: Aaron Judge

New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge and Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh are both having historic seasons — in any other year, both seasons would earn either player a trophy for most valuable player. Given how dominant Judge has been for the past four seasons, we’ve gotten used to him recording historic numbers. Nevertheless, his performance this season cannot be overlooked. Judge currently holds a slash line of .325/.452/.669, leading MLB in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging average, respectively. For some perspective, Judge leads the league with a 1.121 on-base plus slugging (OPS), and the gap between him and Raleigh’s .945 OPS (third highest in MLB) is 173 points. This point differential is the same as the differential between Raleigh and Jackson Chourio, who ranks 67th with a .769 OPS.

Given the loss of Juan Soto in the offseason, the Yankees needed Judge to play at an MVP-caliber level to compete in the American League (AL) this year, and he’s done just that. The Yankees have the second best record in the AL. The strongest argument in favor of Raleigh is that he’s arguably having the greatest season for a catcher of all time — he broke the home run record for a catcher in a single season with 58 (the previous record was 48). Given that the catcher is the most important defensive position and WAR weights this position higher than any other position, Raleigh’s defensive production — albeit around average relative to other catchers — makes his value and season even more impressive. This combination of historic offensive production and defensive value has given him 8.8 WAR on the season, which would be the fourth most for a catcher all time.

As impressive and historic as Raleigh’s season has been, Judge has simply been better. His 199 wRC+ means he’s been twice as good as league average, and his 9.2 WAR leads all of baseball. An undervalued measure for Judge’s MVP case also lies within his teammates’ success this year, as the Yankees have five other everyday players with a wRC+ over 120 (20 points above league average) and seven players with 20 or more home runs; the most of all time is eight. In addition to his league best production, Judge’s lineup presence forces opposing pitchers to give other hitters more pitches to hit, opting to let players not named Judge beat them. This effect also emerged last season when Soto had a career year hitting in front of Judge. Thus, Judge’s dominance elevates the rest of his lineup as well, adding to his MVP case.

Runner up: Cal Raleigh

Cy Young: Tarik Skubal

Following his successful 2024 Cy Young campaign, Skubal has been even more dominant this season. He has lowered his ERA from 2.39 to 2.21, will finish with more innings pitched, more strikeouts, and less walks. Among qualified pitchers, Skubal has the lowest ERA in the AL, lowest WHIP in MLB and second most strikeouts in MLB, while having elite volume with the fourth most innings pitched. Once again, Skubal has relied heavily on his changeup, a pitch with a 46.9% whiff rate, .234 slugging against and a 24 run value, the best of any pitch in baseball.

Garrett Crochet makes a strong case for this award, leading the AL in innings pitched with 197.1. Crochet has coupled volume with dominance, leading the league in strikeouts while preventing runs at an elite rate, with the seventh best ERA in the league at 2.69. However, given that Skubal has similar strikeout and volume numbers while giving up almost half a run less per nine innings, Skubal deserves this award, not Crochet.

Runner up: Garrett Crochet

National League (NL) Award Winners

MVP: Shohei Ohtani

Ohtani followed up his dominant first season in Los Angeles with similar offensive production this season. He is one short of his home run count from last season (54), has a similar OPS (1.036 to 1.011) and has walked significantly more. He’s driven in fewer runs, but much of that has to do with his permanent move to the leadoff spot (he hit second for much of last season). Among National League (NL) players, he is second in home runs, first in runs, second in OBP, first in slugging, first in OPS and first in WAR. These numbers alone make Ohtani the obvious choice for MVP, but he has something else to put him ahead of the rest of the contenders. Ohtani began pitching again, totaling 47 innings thus far with a 2.87 ERA and 11.87 strikeouts per nine innings — which would rank first if he had enough innings pitched to qualify.

Ohtani’s obvious MVP candidacy is also due to the lack of other choices. Soto has been one of the best players in baseball since May, but his slow start to the season and underwhelming high leverage numbers leave him without a real case to win the award. Crow-Armstrong looked like a favorite early on, but has had a disastrous second half, with a 65 wRC+ (tied for second worst in baseball) and just 0.5 WAR, compared to a 131 wRC+ and 4.5 WAR prior to the all star game. Kyle Schwarber has had a phenomenal year, but as a designated hitter just like Ohtani, he has the same negative positional value while having significantly less offensive production — and he does not pitch.

Runner up: Juan Soto

Cy Young: Paul Skenes

Skenes is on his way to having one of the greatest starts to a career in MLB history. Coming out of college, Skenes was most known for his impressive velocity — consistently reaching over triple digits — but Skenes’ main strength this year has been his extensive arsenal. Featuring seven different pitches with at least 4% usage each, Skenes has kept hitters off balance while staying healthy and having elite volume (tied for 14th in innings pitched). Skenes leads MLB in ERA, the NL in WHIP and pitcher WAR and is second in strikeouts.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Cristopher Sánchez and Freddy Peralta have all been elite this year and deserve consideration for Cy Young as well. Yamamoto leads MLB in batting average against, is third in the NL in ERA and third in WHIP. Sánchez is second in the NL in innings pitched, second in ERA and second in ground ball rate. Peralta is second in the NL in batting average against, fourth in ERA and is the ace for the best team in baseball. Runner up: Cristopher Sánchez