The Baseball Writers of America have announced the finalists for their awards for the recently completed baseball season, which will be announced next week. It is a good bet that few of my original predictions for the winners will be accurate. Hopefully, these new predictions will be slightly better, especially since I’ll have a 33% chance of being right.
American League
Most Valuable Player: Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh, Jose Ramirez
Judge has won this award two of the last three seasons and his performance in 2025, when healthy, would ordinarily merit a third, but I have to believe Cal Raleigh, who became just the seventh player to reach the 60-home run mark and the first to do so while catching over 1000 innings, will bring home the award.
Cy Young Award: Hunter Brown, Garrett Crochet, Tarik Skubal
With all due respect to Brown, this is a two-way race. Skubal seemed the obvious choice through much of the season, and I am guessing he will win, but Crochet probably made it much closer down the stretch.
Manager of the Year: John Schneider, Stephen Vogt, Dan Wilson
As usual, I didn’t make any predictions for this award prior to the season. Schneider would be the obvious choice if voting were done today, after leading the Blue Jays within inches of a title. Dan Wilson should also get some support for finally pushing the Mariners past the Astros. But, if I had to guess, I would say Stephen Vogt will win, after the Guardians came out of nowhere to pass the Tigers for the AL Central crown after losing Emmanuel Clase to a gambling scandal mid-year.
Rookie of the Year: Roman Anthony, Nick Kurtz, Jacob Wilson
Another award I didn’t predict prior to the season. Kurtz should run away and hide with this award after knocking 36 home runs with an OPS+ of 173.
