Don’t forget to MLBTR’s annual Free Agent Prediction Contest! Submissions close at 11pm central time this evening. Without further ado, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world today:
1. GM Meetings wrapping up:
It’s the final day of the GM Meetings, but there’s still time for the league’s 30 front office heads to add fuel to the rumor mill before they depart Las Vegas. While a handful of minor transactions have occurred, for the most part the GM Meetings have been about laying groundwork and providing hints on the direction some clubs could look to take this winter (such as the Pirates’ potentially expanded payroll capacity). We’ve also seen comments from GMs downplaying their interest in dealing away speculative trade candidates (such as Dana Brown’s comments on Isaac Paredes). A noteworthy trade or signing could still happen before the GM Meetings wrap up, but the focus is likely to be on movement that could occur in the coming days as qualifying offer decisions come due and the non-tender deadline approaches. Next month’s Winter Meetings figure to have far more fireworks in terms of hot stove activity.
2. 2025 MVPs to be crowned:
As awards week wraps up, the winners of this year’s MVP Awards in both leagues are set to be announced this evening. There’s little intrigue in the NL, where Shohei Ohtani is widely expected to cruise to his fourth career MVP trophy despite banner years from fellow finalists Kyle Schwarber and Juan Soto. In the AL, this year’s season-long battle between Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh will finally come to a close, with Jose Ramirez joining that duo as a finalist following his second consecutive 30-homer, 40-steal season. Whether Judge’s otherworldly offensive numbers will be enough to overcome Raleigh’s 60 home runs and status as a quality defender at the game’s most difficult defensive position will be revealed at 6pm CT.
3. Additional awards to be announced:
While the main event this evening is the Most Valuable Player announcement, that’s not the only award set to be announced throughout the day. The 2025 All-MLB team will be announced today at the GM Meetings, while winners of the Comeback Players of the Year, Relievers of the Year, Outstanding DH, Executive of the Year, and Hank Aaron Awards will also be revealed as well. All of those awards will have their results announced on MLB Network’s awards show this evening, which runs from 8pm to 10pm CT. As noted by MLB.com, more than 70 current and former MLB players are expected to be in attendance for the show.
Aroldis Chapman for AL Reliever of the Year, Trevor Story for AL Comeback Player of the Year.
Outstanding DH has to be Devers even though he played only half a season in the AL. Trout would be a distant second.
And George Springer is well ahead of both Devers and Trout. Majority of his games were at DH.
Springer can also get votes for comeback player of the year. He turned 2025 into quite a turnaround, both during the regular season, but also in the playoffs.
Acoss – Please keep in mind Comeback Player of the Year is heavily weighted by the amount of games lost to illness/injury in prior years.
Springer played in 145 games last year and 154 the year before.
Story played in 26 games last year and 43 the year before.
Canuck – With all due respect, Springer had just 359 PA’s at DH.
Raffy 599
Schwarber 687
Ohtani 695
I just don’t think Raffy should be penalized for splitting his time between leagues.
Schwarber and Ohtani are NL, and Devers only had 334 PA as an AL DH this season.
One must notice the fanboy love for Devers – he had one really good month for the RS, and one for the Giants. The other 4 months of his season were below average.
Springer had a terrific all around season. Springer in a landslide based upon reality.
It will be Ohtani as just one player receives the Edgar Martinez award across the two leagues. He has won it the last four years in a row.
Shohei is getting the NL MVP, he had another otherworldly year, but Schwarber should get second place votes for his career year. Between Raleigh and Judge, that’s a big one, both had stellar seasons.
Jose Ramirez continues to put up consistently good numbers, one of the best pure hitters in baseball.
I’d been wondering whether there had ever been co-MVP’s so I looked it up. It did in fact happen once: Keith Hernandez and Willie Stargell were co-MVP’s in 1979.
Judge and Raleigh feel like co-MVP’s because an equal argument can be made for either to win. What Cal did was unprecedented at his position, yet Judge put up greater overall numbers.
The Yankees still won when Judge was out with injuries. The Dodgers still win if Shohei is out. You take Raleigh out of the Mariners lineup, they don’t make the playoffs. You take Schwarber out of that lineup, they dont win the division. its as simple as that, the name says it all, Most VALUABLE Player. That would be Raleigh and Schwarber IMO.
@ midknight316:
Your argument sounds great but doesn’t exist in reality.
Raleigh only missed 3 games for Seattle this year (impressive) and they won 2 of those three games.
Judge missed 10 games for the Yankees and they went 4-6 in that stretch.
It is a small sample for Cal, obviously, and I’m sure in a larger sample, Seattle may have also struggled, but based on the actual results that happened, the Yankees were really hurt more by losing Judge.
Co-MVP for Cal and Judge feels right. Thank you for the research this is a good precedent to follow for this year’s MVP voting.
Degrom is likely comeback player of the year in AL.
While Judge is the best player in the AL and Raleigh hit a lot of HRs, I still say the most VALUABLE player this season was Ramirez.
Judge and Ramirez were great, but Cal has a more demanding position. Cal for the MVP.
rond – According to the analytics disciples, Judge’s 9.7 WAR trumps Cal’s 7.4 WAR therefore Judge was more valuable.
But thankfully not everyone uses WAR as the sole criteria for awards.
We just saw two historic seasons from Judge and Cal.
No catcher has ever hit 60 homeruns like Cal.
No hitter has ever led the league in batting average and walks and hit 50+ bombs like Judge.
It’d be cool for Cal and Mariner fans for him to win, but think he’ll fall short. Hard to win with a 169 OPS+ when the other guy was at 215. That’s a huge gap that doesn’t get overcome just because one is a catcher and the other is a RF.
Judge’s BA, OBP & SLG were all close to 100 points higher.
I’d say Jorge Polanco was the AL MVP, as he had the highest Clutch score on Fangraphs. Anyone can hit 90 bombs and 200 RBIs but you need guys who come through in high leverage situations. In the NL, it should be Freddie Freeman.
Don’t reward players just for hitting HRs and WAR.
I am guessing to assume this was said in jest. Clutch measures how much better a player did in high leverage versus low leverage situations. Polanco did lead the AL in Clutch, but Judge was miles ahead in win probability added (5.61 to 3.84).
Basically Judge was amazing in all situations. Polanco was only amazing in high leverage situations. If Judge had been bad the rest of the time, he would have had a higher clutch score, but that wouldn’t have made him more valuable.
What Cal did as a catcher is otherworldly, and the difference in positional value should more than make up for the argument between them.
Judge’s ’25 season of wRC+ 204 ranks 27th of all-time in a single season. Raleigh’s 161 ranks 11th among catchers. I wouldn’t be upset if Raleigh won.
@ybc – Judge is simply an incredible hitter and Cal cannot match him there (who can?). But at the single most important defensive position in the game, to get what they did from Cal is incredible. And Judge had his arm issue as well so his defensive work at a far less important position was not a positive factor on the year for the most part. It is easy to quantify hitting, but very difficult to measure things on defense and especially between different positions.
Plus, as a former catcher I simply know that catchers are the smartest, best-looking and most underrated players in the game… ; )
You can make a viable case for either Judge or Raleigh, but I think it’s going to be Raleigh, (even though I’m a Judge fan) and i think it probably should be Raleigh. Judge had a phenomenal year. Raleigh had a historic one and you need to honor it.