Awards season continues this week with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America set to hand out some of the game’s most prestigious honors.
Here’s the schedule for the 2025 awards set to be announced this week on MLB Network (7 p.m. ET each day):
(The MLB Awards also will take place on Thursday, with the show, presented by MGM Rewards, airing on MLB Network at 9 p.m. ET. Several more awards will be handed out at that event, along with the naming of the 2025 All-MLB First and Second Teams.)
There are three AL finalists and three NL finalists for each of the big four BBWAA awards. A full breakdown can be found here.
While some winners may seem more obvious than others, there are plenty of intriguing storylines surrounding the finalists. Let’s take a closer look at the biggest question for each award category:
1) Just how close will the AL MVP race be?
Some awards races are locks, and in other cases, there is at least a clear favorite. But not this year’s AL MVP race. Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge and Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh are finalists — alongside Guardians third baseman José Ramírez — and it felt like those two were neck and neck all season long.
Executives in Major League front offices who spoke to MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand in September were basically split on the question. MLB.com’s own staff, which participates in MVP polls throughout the season, went back and forth between Judge and Raleigh, ultimately giving a slight edge to Judge in the final poll.
It’s a situation where the answer the BBWAA provides may well come down to which specific cross-section of 30 voters (two per AL market) cast their votes for this particular award. And there truly is no wrong answer here, between the titanic slugger putting up some of the best offensive numbers in baseball history (again), and the switch-hitting catcher whose own power display set numerous records. Either Judge will join a select group of three-time MVPs, or Raleigh will become the first Mariner to win one since Ichiro Suzuki was a rookie in 2001.
Now it remains to be seen not only who will win, but also if this will go down as one of the closest MVP votes in history. Since the BBWAA established its current voting system in 1938, 14 MVP races have been decided by 10 points or fewer, including one tie that left Keith Hernandez and Willie Stargell as co-NL MVPs in 1979.
2) Can the preseason Cy Young favorites finish the job?
Before every season, we here at MLB.com try to predict baseball. And far more often than not, baseball defies those predictions. So it goes. Occasionally, though, real-world results actually conform to March expectations. That may be what we’re seeing in the Cy Young Award races.
Before the season, our entire staff voted on who they thought would win each of these eight awards. The clear picks for the Cy? The Tigers’ Tarik Skubal in the AL and the Pirates’ Paul Skenes in the NL. (A group of five writers also made individual Cy picks and came to the same conclusion.) Over seven months later, it’s hard to see these races going any other way. Skubal, the reigning AL winner, actually posted slightly better numbers in most categories in 2025, leading the AL in several of those. If voters look past Skenes’ 10-10 record for a Pirates club that didn’t provide him much support, they’ll see MLB bests in ERA (1.97) and FIP (2.36), among other dominant numbers.
There certainly are worthy alternatives to both pitchers, including Boston’s Garrett Crochet in the AL and Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sánchez in the NL. But it would count as a surprise if Skubal and Skenes don’t hear their names called on Wednesday. There is no patting ourselves on the back for our prognostication here; this is about two pitchers who shouldered sky-high expectations — and delivered on them.
Now the question isn’t so much who will be the AL Rookie of the Year, considering Kurtz’s final line of .290/.383/.619, with 36 home runs in 117 games, which already has netted him an AL Silver Slugger Award at first base. It’s more whether he and Wilson can go 1-2 in an AL race that also includes Red Sox outfielder Roman Anthony as a finalist. Anthony was plenty impressive when on the field (.859 OPS), but between a June callup and a season-ending injury in September, he played in only 71 games while splitting time between both corner-outfield spots and DH. Wilson played in 125 games and batted .311 with an .800 OPS while manning a premium defensive position.
If they pull it off, the Athletics duo would be the ninth pair of rookie teammates to finish first and second in Rookie of the Year voting, and the first pair of position player teammates to do so since Jerome Walton and Dwight Smith of the 1989 Cubs.
4) Will Tito tie a record?
After 11 seasons at the helm in Cleveland, and a number of health challenges, Terry Francona stepped away from the game in 2024. It was his first season not managing since 2012 and just his fifth since 1997.
But Francona couldn’t stay on the sidelines for long. After just a one-season break, he returned when the Reds came calling, taking the helm of his fourth team, after Philadelphia, Boston and Cleveland. The Reds were riding a four-season playoff drought, with just one appearance since 2014. But Francona immediately had Cincinnati back in October, albeit as a Wild Card team that went 83-79 (up from 77-85 in 2024).
After Francona’s previous Manager of the Year wins in Cleveland (2013, ‘16 and ‘22), he now has a chance to become just the fourth skipper to win it four times, joining Hall of Famers Bobby Cox and Tony La Russa, along with Buck Showalter. He will have plenty of competition on the NL side, including from the reigning winner, Pat Murphy, who once again defied expectations by leading the Brewers to an NL Central title. Rob Thomson of the NL East champion Phillies is the other NL finalist.
Murphy and Stephen Vogt (who replaced Francona in Cleveland) are both finalists again this year after winning their respective awards in 2024, when both were on their first year on the job.
