MLB midseason awards 2025: MVP and LVP, Cy Young and Cy Yuk, top rookies and more

New York Times

2 days ago

Hey there. I know you're busy smoothing out your beach blanket or deciding which frozen drink to order for Happy Hour, but I have big news:
There's a Home Run Derby and an All-Star break about to bust out, faster than you can say: 'I'd love a strawberry daiquiri, por favor.'
And when that Derby and that All-Star break arrive, you know what that means: It's time for me to dole out my prestigious midseason awards. Sadly, once again, our awards ceremony apparently will not be hosted by Conan O'Brien, Jeff Conine, Jeff Foxworthy, Andy Fox, Andy Samberg, Ryne Sandberg, Sandy Alcantara or Sandy Koufax. So I'll just have to do this myself. Ready? The envelopes, please!
I went into this process thinking I was going to talk myself into handing this lovely half-trophy to Cal Raleigh. Hey, I've waited all my life to show my longstanding appreciation for catchers who crank 36 home runs in the first half. So now was a good time. Except then …
Those alarm bells started clanging in my head.
Advertisement
Was I succumbing to a case of Aaron Judge MVP Fatigue? I was. And that's a thing us half-season MVP pickers should never let ourselves do.
So sorry, Cal. Your year is awesome. Your year is special. Your year is historic. But you're not the MVP.
There will be people out there who want to reward the sweet-swinging catcher in our midst. I get it. I respect you all. Just understand that you'd be finding a reason not to vote for a man unfurling one of the most spectacular seasons ever by a human not named Babe Ruth.
Behold the season the Yankees' captain will have if his second half goes roughly like his first half:
.360/.468/.737 slash line
60 home runs
146 runs scored
136 RBIs
103 extra-base hits
231 OPS+
Now here's the complete list of men who have had that season: Nobody.
If we drop the home run bar to 59, we add only … the Babe, 1921. If we dip the batting average and OPS+ bars slightly, to .350 and 225, we loop in … Ruth again, in 1927. To include anyone other than the Bambino, we'd have to keep dipping. But why? Point made!
Hold on. There's more.
The last right-handed hitter with an OPS+ of 225 or higher was … A guy named Aaron Judge. Last year.
The list of all other right-handed hitters in National League/American League history with an OPS+ that far above league average consists of … Cubs masher Ross Barnes, who fired up a 235 OPS+ as recently as 149 years ago, in 1876. FYI: That was before fielders wore gloves and back when the 'pitcher's box' was 50 feet from home plate. But whatever.
The only other hitters ever to hit 50 homers, with a .350/.460/.700 slash line (or better) are … Jimmie Foxx in 1932 and Mickey Mantle in 1956 and nobody else who ever stepped into a batter's box.
And can I also mention that Aaron Judge does what he does no matter who's trying to stop him? It's my column, so I think I can.
Advertisement
• He has a 240 OPS+ on the road, a 225 OPS+ at The Stadium, a 235 OPS+ against winning teams and a .230 OPS+ against losing teams.
• His average is .347 against starting pitchers, .382 against relief pitchers, .366 with men in scoring position, .356 with the bases empty, .364 in night games, .354 in day games, .371 on the road and .348 at home.
• He has even hit more home runs away from Yankee Stadium (18) than in a home park totally contoured for him (16).
Oh, and one more thing: He leads Raleigh in OPS by nearly 200 points, has reached base 40 more times and has 'created' 31 more runs if you're into that sort of metric.
So look, I understand that Judge never has to wear shin guards, take foul balls off his mask or lock in on 140 pitches a night from four different pitchers. I admire everything about what the catcher for the Mariners is doing. It just doesn't elevate him over a man towering over everyone in his sport … again.
MY AL MVP TOP FIVE: Judge, Raleigh, Tarik Skubal, Jeremy Peña, Bobby Witt Jr.
You know all that stuff I just said about Aaron Judge MVP Fatigue? There's another, similar malady sweeping across North America this summer. It's called Shohei Ohtani MVP Fatigue.
I know. It's so easy to catch. How many years in a row can you keep giving the same awards to the same dudes? It gets tedious. You've heard so many people tell you that this Shohei Ohtani guy is an alien super-being from a galaxy not our own that you're ready to say: Enough already!
So I, too, went into this process practically looking for reasons to argue that, say, Pete Crow-Armstrong was the real NL MVP in 2025. But sorry. There just aren't enough of them.
And again, let me make this clear: I'm as big an admirer of the PCA magic act as you'll find. If this was the All-Fun to Watch award, we might be having a different conversation. I'd pay just to watch this man play defense. And yes, I got the memo that Ohtani doesn't play any defense, unless somebody hits a comebacker when he's on the mound.
Advertisement
But now let's talk about what separates Ohtani from PCA … and the rest of the species.
Shohei vs. PCA — If we put defense aside, Ohtani leads Crow-Armstrong in slugging by more than 70 points, in OPS by over 150 points and in OBP by 80 points. Ohtani has also reached base nearly 50 more times, in part because PCA practically refuses to walk (four in his last 130 trips). So does defense and base running make up all of that ground? It might for the WAR calculators, but not quite for me.
Shohei vs. Willie and the Babe — At this pace, Ohtani is charging toward another one of those seasons that few living humans have ever witnessed:
54 homers, 12 triples, 153 runs, 21 steals and a 176 OPS+
Whew. Want to see the list of everyone in history who has had a season even in that neighborhood? It won't take long.
(Source: Baseball Reference / Stathead)
So … if we ignore the runs-scored column, it's only the Babe and Shohei. If we ignore the stolen-base column, it's only Willie and Ohtani. And if we don't ignore any of those columns, then only one man in history would wind up having that season: Shohei!
Plus, this is happening in a season when Mookie Betts hasn't been himself and Freddie Freeman has hit .200/.268/.269 since June 1. So Ohtani's offense has never been more indispensable for the Dodgers.
And hey, have I mentioned in the last three paragraphs that he also pitches? In case you're wondering, only one man has ever hit at least 10 home runs in a season and pitched in the World Series that year. You can guess his name. Right. The Babe. In 1918.
So maybe one of these years somebody will come along and truly deserve to win an MVP trophy instead of Ohtani. But this is not shaping up as one of those years.
MY NL MVP TOP FIVE: Ohtani, Crow-Armstrong, Kyle Tucker, Zack Wheeler, James Wood.
Advertisement
As I embark on my intensive research to pick these Least Valuable Player awards, I have a few friends in baseball I like to survey. One of them painted the portrait of Luis Robert Jr., runaway LVP favorite, as perfectly as it could possibly be painted.
'He has one job — to get himself traded,' my friend said. 'And he's failing!'
Yes, the White Sox didn't ask much of their famous center fielder this year: Just try not to pop any hamstrings … and try not to be terrible. Oh, well. He went 0-for-2!
The good news is, he's back from his latest visit to the injured list. The bad news is, if there's a contender out there who could look at him and say, Yessir, that guy is our ticket to the parade floats, that team must be thinking about the Tournament of Roses parade, not a ride through the Canyon of Heroes.
So what makes Robert so Not Valuable? We don't have enough time or space to rip through all of that. But here are some upbeat highlights:
Not your average masher! Want to guess who has the worst batting average of any AL hitter with at least 275 plate appearances? Luis Robert Jr. would be a good guess (at .185).
But at least he's consistent! If you're looking to trade for a fellow whose average was below .200 in April and May and June, Robert would be your man.
Or if you're looking to trade for a guy whose home-road splits aren't a concern, that would be another big selling point — since this guy is hitting .197 at home and .174 on the road.
He's a cool breeze waiting to happen! So maybe he might not keep his cool, but at least Robert will keep you cool — just from all that swinging-and-missing he's been known to provide. It isn't every year you can trade for a man with 89 strikeouts and 47 hits. But that opportunity is now upon us.
Advertisement
Whatever you need, he's been there, done that! Looking for a guy with experience leading off? Robert has led off 60 innings this year — and has eight hits!
Looking for a guy who has batted in many big spots? The higher the leverage, the higher you'd need to be to get excited about this dude coming up. His average in high-leverage at-bats this year? An eye-popping .123! And with three times as many strikeouts (21) as hits (seven)!
Better late than never! Robert has come to bat 28 times in the ninth inning this season — and has three hits (but 11 strikeouts)! That computes to a mind-blowing .120/.214/.160 slash line.
So I always hate to pile on any player when he still has half a season left to steer his ship back to the marina, but yikes! I know that Not Valuable is a quality that's in the eye of the beholder, but there aren't enough eye drops in the Walgreens superstore to change the vision of us LVP award beholders.
MY AL LVP 'BOTTOM THREE': Robert, Adolis García, Anthony Rendon (career achievement award).
It was just three years ago that Michael Harris II won a very different kind of honor. It's known as the Rookie of the Year Award. And the list of guys who have won a Rookie of the Year Award and an LVP award is shorter than Jose Altuve (although José Abreu is proof that this can be done).
Still, this seems like an excellent time to ask: What the heck happened to Michael Harris?
If you'd asked me to make a friendly wager, as recently as spring training 2024, on which was more likely — Harris winning an LVP award or turning into a superstar — I'd have bet my bobblehead collection on 'superstar.' Wouldn't you?
World-class athletes who put up five-win seasons and a 133 OPS+ at age 21 don't usually turn into the least productive offensive player in the sport before they even turn 25. But here we are. Does this sound like a big-time LVP candidate to you?
Advertisement
He's more minus than plus! Who is last in the major leagues, among all qualified hitters, in OPS+ (52) and Weighted Runs Created+ (46)? Guess who.
Take a pitch! Would you believe Harris hasn't drawn a walk since May 18? That's 43 games and 158 plate appearances ago. In a related development, he's last in the major leagues in walk percentage (2.8) and on-base percentage (.232). Just so you know, only one Brave in the entire division-play era (1969-present) has had a walk rate and OBP that low over a full season: noted out machine Andrés Thomas (2.1 percent, .228 OBP) in 1989.
Shades of Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz! Normally, when we invoke those names, that's a good thing. It doesn't seem quite so good when you're comparing their hitting exploits to the local center fielder.
Greg Maddux, 1998 — .240/.278/.280
Tom Glavine, 1992 — .247/.272/.286
John Smoltz, 1999 — .274/.338/.387
Michael Harris II, 2025 — .208/.232/.313
June rhymes with swoon! June is supposed to be hitting weather. Somebody tell the center fielder for the Braves. Since June 1, Harris is hitting .149/.162/.254. And you know what we call slash lines like that? LVP material!
The Braves have been such a disappointment, I honestly came close to awarding a three-headed LVP trophy to Ozzie Albies, Jurickson Profar and Harris. But Harris out-LVP'd them all. So um, congratulations?
MY NL LVP 'BOTTOM THREE': Harris, Albies, Bryan Reynolds.
Should I just give every one of these major awards to the guy who won it last year? That would save so much time. I could just reprint all the same stuff I said about them last year and see who noticed.
But you can call off your conspiracy theories. Sometimes, you just have to recognize greatness when it appears in front of you. That's true of Judge. It's true of Ohtani. And out there on that pitcher's mound, it's time to recognize that when we watch Tarik Skubal throw a baseball, he's working at a different level from almost everyone else.
Advertisement
Before I wrote this column, I spent a lot of time digging in on the spectacular seasons of Hunter Brown, Jacob deGrom, Max Fried, Joe Ryan, Garrett Crochet and every other AL pitcher I could make a Cy Young case for. They're all having tremendous seasons, and their teams would be in way worse shape without them. But …
Then there's Skubal, who is so dominant, he makes me wonder how many hitters would rather rake the infield with a salad fork than hit against him. Here's what makes me think that:
Nobody hits him! Opposing hitters have batting averages under .200 against him whether they're left-handed, right-handed, playing at home or on the road. Opposing cleanup hitters have a .120/.151/.140 slash line against him. No. 3 hitters? They're hitting .170, with a .185 OBP. The 5-6-7 hitters are at .191, .152 and .125, respectively. Is that good?
Left on left crime! Skubal has faced 90 left-handed hitters this season. Two have scored a run. He has served up one extra-base hit — and it was a double. He has walked only one of them — and struck out 30. The slash line: .179/.189/.192. Is that good?
He's getting better! The Tigers lost the first two games Skubal started this year. In his 16 starts since, they're 14-2 … with a 1-0 loss and an extra-inning loss, neither of which were hung on him. He's 10-0, with a 1.62 ERA, 138 strikeouts and 10 walks. So let's ask again: Is that good? Whoa. Let me tell you how good.
I spent way too much time burrowing down a Baseball Reference rabbit hole, looking for all the pitchers in the modern era who had a 16-start span with at least 100 strikeouts, no more than 10 walks and an ERA under 2.00. Here come all of them:
Greg Maddux, 1995 — 10-1, 1.64, 105 K, 10 BB
Clayton Kershaw, 2016 — 10-3, 1.69, 138 K, 7 BB
Tarik Skubal, 2025 — 10-0, 1.62, 138 K, 10 BB
Advertisement
Wow. Good group.
He has no fear of the bat! The same thing blows me away every time I watch Skubal pitch. Nothing — and I mean nobody — scares him. He's like a machine, blowing one pitch after another inside the strike zone and nobody hits them.
I decided to try to document this, with data from Sports Info Solutions. Here's what I found:
Skubal has thrown the highest percentage of pitches inside the zone (49.8 percent) of any full-time starter in baseball this season. Yet his swing-and-miss rate, on those pitches, is also the highest in baseball (23.5 percent). Who does that?
I went back more than 20 years, as far back as Sports Info Solutions' data exists. You know who else had an in-the-zone percentage and a whiff percentage that good in those seasons? If you guessed nobody, you're an excellent guesser.
The closest of any full-time starter? A guy named Pedro Martinez, in both 2002 and '03. That's excellent company.
And one more thing! Skubal leads his league in the three categories I always check first when I do these Cy Young research projects: WHIP, strikeout rate and ERA. Over the last 50 years, every qualifying starting pitcher who led his league in all three of those metrics also won the Cy Young, except for … Pedro, in 2002 and '03. (We might need a re-vote!)
On the other hand, the last AL pitcher to win back-to-back Cy Youngs was also a man named Pedro, in 1999 and 2000. So does it feel like these two men are destined to be linked in every possible way? It does to me.
MY AL CY YOUNG TOP FIVE: Skubal, Brown, Fried, deGrom, Crochet.
Full disclosure: I was an actual NL Cy Young Award voter last year — and I did not vote for Zack Wheeler. So no need to pound out those snarky You're from Philadelphia so of course you picked Wheeler comments. That had nothing to do with this.
If I was just going to pick That Guy from Philly, why would I be staring at my notebook right now and seeing a Wheeler versus Paul Skenes comparison in 40 different categories? The truth is, the Wheeler-Skenes Cy Young debate is as close as it gets — but also as fun as it gets.
Advertisement
So let's have that debate.
The case for Skenes — is soooo easy to make. He's not even The Next Big Thing anymore. He's already Today's Big Thing. He's on his way to a second straight season with an ERA under 2.00. And even if we lower the innings bar to 130, to account for how many he pitched last year, you'll only find three starting pitchers in the last 75 years who have had sub-2.00 ERAs in back-to-back seasons:
Sandy Koufax — 1963-64
Greg Maddux — 1994-95
Clayton Kershaw — 2013-14
So Skenes leads Wheeler (and everyone else in the sport) in ERA. And Cy Youngs are made for aces with sub-2.00 ERAs. But now let's turn to …
The case for Wheeler — Wheeler leads Skenes (and the entire NL) in WHIP, strikeouts, strikeout rate and opponent average. The Phillies' ace also leads Skenes in innings per start, pitches per start, quality starts and super-quality starts (at least seven innings, no more than two earned runs allowed).
So what does that tell us? Well, since baseball instituted a Cy Young Award in each league in 1967, here are all the qualifying pitchers who had an ERA as low as Wheeler's (2.17) and led their league in WHIP, strikeouts, strikeout rate and opponent average:
Pedro Martinez, 2000 — won Cy Young
Pedro Martinez, 1999 — won Cy Young
Tom Seaver, 1973 — won Cy Young
And that's a wrap.
But that's not all — because there is something to be said about the meaning of acehood, and that level of brilliance, when the pitcher doing that dominating is pitching for a team built to win, as opposed to whatever it is the Pirates are trying to accomplish (through no fault of Skenes, obviously).
So what happens when Wheeler tees it up against the best teams in the sport? Thanks for asking. Since the beginning of May, he has made five starts against teams that would be in the postseason if it had started as I was typing this. He has a 1.20 ERA in those starts. The Phillies have won four of them (and got shut out in the other). And those teams have hit .170 against him.
Advertisement
I know this isn't the Most Valuable Pitcher award. It's a performance award — for the guy who pitches the best. But when it's this close, those big-game ace points can be a separator. And in the end, as I looked over all the numbers scribbled in my notebook, they were the ultimate separator for me.
MY NL CY YOUNG TOP FIVE: Wheeler, Skenes, Logan Webb, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Andrew Abbott.
It was only nine months ago that Walker Buehler was an official World Series hero, which was a cool way to say farewell to the only team he'd ever pitched for, the Dodgers. But life on the other side of World Series parties comes with no guarantees of future performance. And Boston could tell you all about that.
The Red Sox must have forgotten to send me their internal projections on the kind of season they thought they'd be getting when they signed Buehler for a cool $21.05 million, on a one-year guarantee. But I'm going to use my vivid imagination and say: I'm exceedingly confident they didn't project this:
A 6.12 ERA! That's the highest of any starting pitcher in the big leagues who has pitched as many innings as he has.
A 1.56 WHIP and .367 opponents OBP! Those would each be the worst of any full-time AL starting pitcher.
An .856 opponents OPS! That's not just the worst of any AL starter. It also means that he's transformed all the hitters he's faced into a group with a higher OPS than Bobby Witt Jr., Matt Olson or Vlad Guerrero Jr.
An allergy to airplanes! OK, that's not an actual medical diagnosis. It's just a wild conclusion I jumped to based on Buehler's incredible 8.66 ERA on the road. That's the worst of any full-time AL starter — by nearly two runs.
Would you believe opposing hitters have a slash line of .342/.405/.581 against him away from Fenway? That means he's essentially turning everyone he pitches against into 1958 Willie Mays (.347/.419/.583).
Advertisement
So many stretch marks! Oh, and one more issue that was hard to miss. When he has had to pitch out of the stretch, Buehler has allowed a .310/.431/.534 slash line with runners on base. That computes to a .965 OPS, worst in the AL … and also pretty much the modern-day equivalent of 1926 Lou Gehrig (.313/.420/.539).
It's always tough to hand out these prestigious Cy Yuk honors to guys who once seemed like they were bound for stardom. And you should know I came really close to pointing the president of the Sacramento Fan Club, Luis Severino, toward the Cy Yuk podium. But baseball, like life, moves pretty fast. So when you write these columns, you have to stop, look around and make these tough decisions.
MY AL CY YUK 'BOTTOM THREE': Buehler, Severino, Bailey Ober.
I'm not sure if anyone has noticed this, but it seems kinda hard to pitch in Colorado. I stumbled on that shocking fact while trying to decide who the NL Cy Yuk ought to be. Check out this crazy leaderboard:
Highest opponent AVG, NL starters
(minimum 85 innings pitched)
Antonio Senzatela — .354
Germán Márquez — .314
Kyle Freeland — .311
You don't have to ask: Do those three guys know each other? They're all teammates — the three veteran 'anchors' in the rotation of the 2025 Rockies. And that whole anchor thing is going great. They're a combined 7-33, with a 5.97 ERA, for a team that's already 51 games under .500. And the Rockies have already lost a staggering 40 games that that trio has started.
So it was really tempting just to turn this Cy Yuk award into a three-headed monster. But that was until I looked more closely at how Senzatela has managed to distance himself from his friends. In fact, he's heading for one of the (ahem) rockiest seasons in modern history. Here's how:
He's turned the entire sport into a league of .354 hitters! And that wouldn't be just the worst opponent average in Rockies history. It would be the worst by any full-time starting pitcher on any team in 95 years — since Les Sweetland allowed an opponent average of (yikes) .371 for the 1930 Phillies.
Advertisement
There's not much whiffing going on! How hittable has Senzatela been? I think this covers it.
Hits allowed per nine innings — 13.8
Strikeouts per nine innings — 4.8
Almost three times as many hits as strikeouts — in an era when there are more whiffs at these games than hot dogs? That seemed impossible to me. I had no idea how impossible.
According to Baseball Reference, only one other full-time starter since 1901 has had a strikeout rate that low and a hits-allowed rate that high in a season. And if you've been waiting for the last four paragraphs for another Les Sweetland name drop, your dreams have come true.
Les Sweetland, 1930 — 14.6 hits, 1.9 strikeouts per 9 IP.
Is this the most attention Les has gotten since the Great Depression? Let's go with yes.
And none of this seems like a Coors thing! Look, when you pitch for the Rockies, everything is sort of a Coors thing. But in the case of Senzatela, he hasn't been any better on the road (1-7, 6.43 ERA) than at Coors Field (2-6, 6.75 ERA). Opposing hitters are raking at .380 at sea level, versus .332 in the shadow of those mountain peaks. So explain that. Altitude sickness?
I've never seen a stats page like this! It almost seems like one giant typo, but all of this is really happening when Senzatela pitches:
How about one quality start in 18 starts … and the 1-2-3-4-5-6 hitters in the opposing lineup all hitting at least .370 against him. … and the heck with third-time-through-the-order issues. How about Senzatela's first time through the order, when the other team hits .389/.422/.569 against him? (Just for frame of reference, here's Ty Cobb, 1917: .383/.444/.570.)
I've handed out these awards for a long time now. So I know what Cy Yukkery looks like when I see it. And this just in: It has never looked more like this.
MY NL CY YUK 'BOTTOM THREE': Senzatela, Márquez, Jordan Romano (with way too many honorable mentions to name here).
Advertisement
We haven't seen many rookies like Jacob Wilson. And I mean that as a compliment.
You know the last Rookie of the Year with a batting average of .330 or higher? That would be Ichiro Suzuki, of course, in 2001 (at .350). You know the last before him? That would be Fred Lynn (.331) — 50 years ago.
But in the half-century since, you know how many rookies besides Ichiro have gotten at least 400 plate appearances in a season and had a batting average in the .330s or better? That answer would be zero …until now. (Or at least until Wilson blows past 400 plate appearances at some point this month.)
So there's that. But in the case of the sweet-swinging shortstop from Sacramento, it isn't just that average that stands out. It's how much contact he makes, in an age when 'contact' isn't the first word you think of when someone asks you to describe modern baseball.
He has 85 more hits than strikeouts! That's the second-most of any hitter in the sport, behind only (who else) Luis Arraez, who is at plus-91.
He's on pace for 200 hits, 47 strikeouts! And that's a feat in any era. Joe DiMaggio got 200 hits and struck out under 50 times as a rookie, in 1936. It's been done exactly twice since — by Johnny Pesky in 1942 and Harvey Kuenn in 1953. That's it, in the last 90 years.
He's sitting on a 7.3 percent strikeout rate! A .335 batting average and K's in only 7.3 percent of all his plate appearances? Unreal. I could find only three rookies since World War 2 with a strikeout rate that low, an average of .330 or higher and at least 300 plate appearances. You can learn more about all of them in Cooperstown!
Ichiro Suzuki, 2001 — .350, 7.2 percent
Wade Boggs, 1982 — .349, 5.5 percent
Richie Ashburn, 1948 — .333, 4.2 percent
(Source: FanGraphs)
Advertisement
The first thing I look for, in any award winner, is how much historic significance we can attach to his season. In Jacob Wilson, I found way more than I even thought I'd find. Which made this the easiest pick on my board.
MY AL ROOKIE OF THE YEAR TOP FIVE: Wilson, Carlos Narváez, Cam Smith, Nick Kurtz, Jasson Domínguez.
One of the most fun things I do when I construct this column is pore over the list of previous winners of these awards, just for perspective. All right, want some perspective? All these men have won a National League Rookie of the Year Award in this quarter-century:
Albert Pujols
Buster Posey
Bryce Harper
Jacob deGrom
José Fernández
Kris Bryant
Ronald Acuña Jr.
Corey Seager
Paul Skenes
And the names I skipped over aren't far behind. So if Drake Baldwin has a second half to match his first half, and holds off the likes of Jacob Misiorowski, Agustín Ramírez and another strong field, to take home this trophy, he has a lot to live up to.
Only nine catchers have won a Rookie of the Year Award. Three of them — Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk and Mike Piazza — are Hall of Famers. Posey figures to join them. And Thurman Munson, Benito Santiago and Sandy Alomar Jr. combined to make 18 All-Star teams.
So is that where Baldwin is headed? To the land of perennial All-Stars? It wouldn't be a shock. Here's why:
He could have been an All-Star — Baldwin trails only the two NL All-Stars, Will Smith and Hunter Goodman, in FanGraphs WAR (with 2.1). That means he's ahead of William Contreras, J.T. Realmuto, Carson Kelly and the No. 1 catcher on his own team, Sean Murphy. And that's awfully impressive, for a guy who has only started 42 big-league games as a catcher.
He's hanging with the legends — You don't see a lot of rookie catchers fire up a .276/.351/.486 slash line, especially at a time when it feels as if it's never been harder to hit. Only two rookie-of-the-year catchers in history have slugged .500 or better, and topped that average and OBP:
Piazza, 1993 — .318/.370/.561
Posey, 2010 — .305/.357/.505
His pitchers love throwing to him — The ultimate measure of any rookie catcher is how much his manager trusts him, and how much his pitchers trust him. So take a look at this.
That's just a sampling. But Brian Snitker has divided the playing time remarkably evenly, and has given Baldwin a chance to catch the best pitchers on the roster. You can see why!
Even with all of that, I was conflicted about this choice. Ramírez has been a team-changing figure for the Marlins. And I almost picked Misiorowski just based on the small-sample Wow Factor. But those guys have a whole second half to catch the leader in the clubhouse. I wish them luck, because 'catching' is what Baldwin does best.
Advertisement
MY NL ROOKIE OF THE YEAR TOP FIVE: Baldwin, Ramírez, Misiorowski, Chad Patrick, Caleb Durbin.
Here's my annual refresher course on how us baseball writers vote on this award. First, we ask: What team was I most wrong about? Then we shrewdly conclude: That guy must be Manager of the Year!
So guess which two teams have spent the last three months improving their FanGraphs playoff odds more than anyone else? That would be the Tigers (up 52.9 percent) and the Cubs (up 43.7 percent). And there's your foolproof formula for Manager of the Year picking at work.
Except that's not all there is to this with Hinch and Counsell, two men who separate themselves from the masses in so many ways, because they're so next-level good at literally every part of modern managing.
Here's the Tigers' president of baseball operations, Scott Harris, on Hinch: 'It starts with the trust he builds with our players. Our guys play hard for AJ because he puts them first, always looking out for their careers and putting them in positions to succeed. He's the perfect manager for this young team.'
And here's the Cubs' president of baseball ops, Jed Hoyer, on Counsell: 'I just feel like he's so complete. I feel like he's a five-tool manager, in the sense that the players love playing for him. He's excellent in-game. He's additive to the front-office process. He just handles every part of the job exceptionally well.'
Obviously, they're not the only two managers we could say those things about. But this is their time. The Tigers have had one Manager of the Year (Jim Leyland, in 2006) since the days of Sparky Anderson. The Cubs have had two (Joe Maddon in 2015 and Lou Piniella in 2008) since Don Zimmer. Seems like time for that to change!
MY AL MANAGER OF THE YEAR TOP FIVE: Hinch, Joe Espada, John Schneider, Kevin Cash, Dan Wilson.
MY NL MANAGER OF THE YEAR TOP FIVE: Counsell, Pat Murphy, Bob Melvin, Rob Thomson, Oliver Marmol.
(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic. Photos: Cole Burston, Vaughn Ridley, Patrick McDermott, Matthew Grimes Jr. / Getty Images)