Just Baseball’s 2025 AL and NL Awards: MVP, Cy Young, ROY

The 2025 MLB regular season officially came to a close yesterday, marking an end to some truly thrilling awards races in each league.

Between the tightly-contested MVP race of Aaron Judge vs. Cal Raleigh, to an NL Rookie of the Year race that remained wide-open all season, we were treated to some truly standout performances during the 2025 campaign.

The BBWAA will be handling the official voting for all the main awards, with winners set to be released in November after the conclusion of the World Series. Here at Just Baseball, we don’t have to wait nearly as long to determine who should be the winner of each of the major MLB awards.

Last week, we conducted a poll with our staff of writers, allowing them to vote on who should win the awards in both the AL and the NL for MVP, Cy Young, and Rookie of the Year.

Unlike the BBWAA, who fill out a ballot of the top 10 when they submit their vote, we simply asked our staff to pick a winner for each award. With further ado, here’s our official staff Just Baseball Awards for the 2025 MLB season.

Just Baseball’s AL MVP: Aaron Judge (59.4%)

JB’s AL MVP Runner-Up: Cal Raleigh (40.6%)

Probably the awards race that will be the closest once all the votes are tallied, our MVP vote in the American League was no different.

With only two candidates left in this race, we voted between Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh to win the AL MVP, and our staff came to a near 60-40 consensus that it is Judge who deserves to win the award for the second-straight year.

Now, if you check the odds at BetMGM, Raleigh was right there with Judge last week, and even passed him when he hit his 60th home run. Raleigh posted a 9.1 fWAR from the incredibly important position of catcher, on a team that won their division in the Mariners, all bolstering his case.

Judge did not lead his team to a division title, although they merely lost due to a tiebreaker, and he did not hit 60 home runs. Judge did, however, hit 53 home runs, scored an AL-best 137 runs, and led all of Major League Baseball with a 10.1 fWAR. One full win better than Raleigh.

Regardless of whether he wins his third MVP, Judge has won his first-ever batting title, pacing the Junior Circuit by 20 points with his .331 batting average. He also led the league in OBP by nearly 60 points at .457, and in slug by almost 100 points, edging out Raleigh .688 to .589.

Compare Raleigh and Judge in terms of OPS, and you will find that the latter has edged out the former by nearly 200 points at 1.144 compared to .948.

Raleigh is winning the narrative due to the unprecedented season he had for a catcher, as he just posted the first-ever 60-HR season for a backstop, and his is the first 9-win season from a catcher since Buster Posey had a 9.8 fWAR season in his MVP campaign back in 2012.

Both Judge and Raleigh deserve the award, but by the numbers, Judge has been a more valuable player, which has him trending toward being an all-time MVP snub. For the Just Baseball Awards, though, Judge takes the crown.

Just Baseball’s NL MVP: Shohei Ohtani (87.5%)

JB’s NL MVP Runner-Up: Kyle Schwarber (9.4%)

We came to a much greater consensus when it came to deciding the NL MVP, with Shohei Ohtani bringing in nearly 90% of our vote. Kyle Schwarber picked up nearly a tenth of the vote, and Geraldo Perdomo grabbed a stray vote as well.

Ohtani led all National League hitters with a 7.5 fWAR, hitting a career-high 55 home runs, while posting a 172 wRC+ and a 1.014 OPS, with both of those marks leading the NL.

Schwarber paced the National League in home runs with 56, and in RBIs with 132, and of course, the Phillies ran away with the NL East. Still, those few resume points hardly compare to Ohtani’s, which also includes pitching to a 2.87 ERA across 47 innings pitched.

Combining both his pitcher and hitter fWAR, Ohtani’s 9.4 was second in MLB only to Judge.

Just Baseball’s AL Cy Young: Tarik Skubal (87.5%)

JB’s AL Cy Young Runner-Up: Garrett Crochet (12.5%)

Garrett Crochet led the American League in both innings pitched at 205 1/3 and paced all of Major League Baseball with 255 strikeouts. Across his first 32 starts in year one with the Red Sox, Crochet pitched to a 2.59 ERA and posted a 5.8 fWAR.

Unfortunately for Crochet, Tarik Skubal was just a little bit better with his 2.21 ERA and 6.6 fWAR, with both of those marks leading the American League.

Right now, Skubal is atop the mountain when it comes to being the top pitcher in the American League, and despite a valiant effort from Crochet, nobody has pushed him from that top spot in 2025.

Just Baseball’s NL Cy Young: Paul Skenes (96.9%)

JB’s NL Cy Young Runner-Up: Cristopher Sanchez (3.1%)

When the NL Cy Young is voted on this year, there is every chance that Paul Skenes runs away with the award and wins it unanimously. For our staff voting however, one rogue Cristopher Sanchez vote kept Skenes from taking the award unamiously.

Sanchez deserves to be the runner-up, as he pitched to a 2.50 ERA across 32 starts and 202 innings pitched. Sanchez did throw more innings than Skenes (187.2 IP), but the 1.97 ERA that Skenes posted was a huge edge that should have the Pirates’ ace run away with the award.

Just Baseball’s AL Rookie of the Year: Nick Kurtz (96.9%)

JB’s AL ROY Runner-up: Colson Montgomery (3.1%)

Probably even more surprising than Cristopher Sanchez grabbing a Cy Young vote from our staff, one of our writers decided to cast their AL Rookie of the Year vote for Colson Montgomery of the Chicago White Sox.

Montgomery did have a very impressive season, hitting 21 home runs in 71 games and posting a 129 wRC+, all while playing strong defense at shortstop.

Still, that production pales in comparison to Nick Kurtz, who hit 36 home runs in 117 games, posting an MLB-best 170 wRC+ amongst rookies and pacing all rookies with a 4.6 fWAR. Kurtz very well could win the AL Rookie of the Year by a unanimous vote.

Just Baseball’s NL Rooke of the Year: Cade Horton (56.3%)

JB’s NL ROY Runner-ups: Drake Baldwin (37.5%), Isaac Collins (6.3%)

The NL Rookie of the Year race is pretty wide-open, with Cade Horton and Drake Baldwin being the two clear favorites. Brewers rookie Isaac Collins hung in this race for a majority of the season, but seemingly fell off in the very end. He still picked up a few votes from our staff.

Drake Baldwin had the best season among all the NL rookies, leading the pack with his 3.1 fWAR. Playing 124 games for the Braves, with 97 of those games being started at catcher, Baldwin hit .274/.341/.469, with 19 home runs and 80 RBIs.

With all of that said, Cade Horton very well could be the winner of this award, due to the huge role he filled in the Cubs’ rotation this season. Horton made 22 starts and pitched to a 2.67 ERA across 118 innings pitched. He went 11-4, and only got better as the year wore on, finishing the season with a 1.64 ERA over his final seven starts.

Unfortunately for the Cubs, Horton went down with a rib fracture last week; otherwise, he would be gearing up to make a playoff start this week.

Still, Horton is in line to win the NL Rookie of the Year, and he won the Just Baseball Award by taking in nearly 60% of our staff vote.