The Baseball Writers of America have announced the finalists for their awards for the just 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: Shohei Ohtani, Corey Seager, Marcus Semien
Shohei Ohtani should run away and hide with this award. But, an early end to his season and perhaps some burnout from voters picking the same name every year may open the door a bit. That said, these awards were voted on prior to the post-season, so the Rangers World Series win won’t move the needle at all, so I’m going to guess Ohtani still gets it.
Cy Young Award: Gerrit Cole, Kevin Gausman, Sonny Gray
Gerrit Cole seems the obvious choice here. He leads the three finalists in nearly every category and managed a WHIP below one in over 200 innings.
Manager of the Year: Bruce Bochy, Kevin Cash, Brandon Hyde
As usual, I didn’t make any predictions for this award prior to the season. If voting took place after the World Series, then Bochy would be a shoo-in. However, since the early playoff exits of the Orioles and the Rays don’t get taken into account, Brandon Hyde should win this award after leading the Orioles to an AL East title.
Rookie of the Year: Tanner Bibee, Triston Casas, Gunnar Henderson
Another award I didn’t predict prior to the season. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say Gunnar Henderson will win, since he in the only one of these three that I have heard of previously.
National League
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On Tuesday. we looked at the leaders in the 39 games I attended this year on the offensive side of the ball. With the League Championship Series in full swing, it’s time to finish up our look back at the 2025 season with the pitching leaders, starting with everyone’s favorite pitching statistic: