{"id":24999,"date":"2026-11-06T01:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T07:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/?p=24999"},"modified":"2026-11-03T11:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T17:28:10","slug":"2026-bbwaa-award-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/2026-bbwaa-award-predictions\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 BBWAA Award Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/balls-endofseason.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-15199\" src=\"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/balls-endofseason.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"504\" height=\"378\" srcset=\"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/balls-endofseason.jpg 504w, http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/balls-endofseason-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 504px) 100vw, 504px\" \/><\/a>The Baseball Writers of America have announced the finalists for their awards for the recently completed baseball season, which will be announced next week. \u00a0It is a good bet that few of my original\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/2026-predictions\/\">predictions<\/a>\u00a0for the winners will be accurate. \u00a0Hopefully, these new predictions will be slightly better, especially since I\u2019ll have a 33% chance of being right.<\/p>\n<h3>American League<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Most Valuable Player:<\/strong> Yordan Alvarez, Junior Caminero, Bobby Witt Jr.<\/p>\n<p>Alvarez, who finished third in MVP voting in 2022, looks to be a lock after leading all qualifying hitters in batting average, OBP, and slugging while falling just short of the Triple Crown while setting career highs in home runs and RBIs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cy Young Award:<\/strong> Dylan Cease, Parker Messick, Cam Schlitter<\/p>\n<p>Schlittler led the AL with a 1.95 ERA in 33 starts and he tied for the second-most strikeouts in the AL with Cease.\u00a0 I assume he will be taking home the award.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Manager of the Year:<\/strong> Kevin Cash, Chad Tracy, Will Venable<\/p>\n<p>As usual, I didn\u2019t make any predictions for this award prior to the season.\u00a0 In a normal season, both Cash and Tracy would deserve serious consideration.\u00a0 Cash led the underfunded Rays to the AL East title, holding off &#8220;superior&#8221; rosters in New York and Boston.\u00a0 Tracy took over a dead-in-the-water Red Sox team and turned them around, leading them into the playoffs.\u00a0 Unfortunately for them, Will Venable led the upstart White Sox to the most wins in MLB history for a team coming off of at least three straight 100-loss seasons, becoming the first team ever to make the post-season after two straight 100-loss seasons.\u00a0 I can&#8217;t see any scenario where he does not win.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rookie of the Year:<\/strong> Kevin McGonigle, Parker Messick, Payton Tolle<\/p>\n<p>Another award I didn\u2019t predict prior to the season.\u00a0 McGonigle has been the assumed winner since June, and I don&#8217;t think anything Messick or Tolle did since has changed that.<\/p>\n<h3>National League<\/h3>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-16612\"><\/span><strong>Most Valuable Player:<\/strong> Pete Crow-Armstrong, Shohei Ohtani, Brice Turang<\/p>\n<p>An injury filled season for Shohei Ohtani opened the door for someone else to win the award and Pete Crow-Armstrong took the bull by the horns and should easily win.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cy Young Award:<\/strong> Jacob Misiorowski, Chris Sale, Christopher S\u00e1nchez<\/p>\n<p>S\u00e1nchez finished second to Paul Skenes last year and might have to settle for the same result this year, as I assume Jacob Misiorowski, who led the league with 252 strikeouts and a 1.80 ERA, will win the whole thing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Manager of the Year:<\/strong> Don Mattingly, Pat Murphy, Walt Weiss<\/p>\n<p>Pat Murphy looks to become the first manager to win this award three straight years, and he has a strong resume to do so, leading the Brewers to a franchise-record for wins in the regular season.\u00a0 Unfortunately for him, voting was done prior to the post-season, so his World Series title won&#8217;t play in his favor.\u00a0 Mattingly took over a struggling Phillies team and got them into the playoffs.\u00a0 Weiss led the Braves to the NL East title.\u00a0 My guess is familiarity breeds a little contempt here and that Mattingly wins the award.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rookie of the Year:<\/strong> Carson Benge, Sal Stewart, JJ Wetherholt<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s no runaway winner here, but Stewart, to me, put together the best overall season.\u00a0 The award should be his.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Baseball Writers of America have announced the finalists for their awards for the recently completed baseball season, which will be announced next week. \u00a0It is a good bet that few of my original\u00a0predictions\u00a0for the winners will be accurate. \u00a0Hopefully, these new predictions will be slightly better, especially since I\u2019ll have a 33% chance of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2933,11490,125,121,12812,12777,12808,6036,574,12168,1536,7512,12776,12810,12816,8047,12813,2244,79,12814,11649,11647,12815,9711,254,255,258,12809,8049,12811,49,6087,3417,10218],"class_list":["post-24999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","tag-bbwaa","tag-bobby-witt-jr","tag-braves","tag-brewers","tag-brice-turang","tag-cam-schlitter","tag-carson-benge","tag-chad-tracy","tag-chris-sale","tag-christopher-sanchez","tag-don-mattingly","tag-dylan-cease","tag-jacob-misiorowski","tag-jj-wetherholt","tag-junior-caminero","tag-kevin-cash","tag-kevin-mcgonigle","tag-mlb","tag-mvp","tag-parker-messick","tag-pat-murphy","tag-paul-skenes","tag-payton-tolle","tag-pete-crow-armstrong","tag-phillies","tag-rays","tag-red-sox","tag-sal-stewart","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-walt-weiss","tag-white-sox","tag-will-venable","tag-world-series","tag-yordan-alvarez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24999"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25051,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24999\/revisions\/25051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}