Don’t forget to enter 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.
Canuck – I was just pointing out the disparity in time spent at DH between real DH’s and Springer. I don’t think anybody viewed Springer as a DH this season, not with 220 PA’s in the OF this year.
George Springer was awarded the silver slugger at AL DH
Someone thinks he’s a DH.
If we’re talking AL, Springer was better and had more PA’s then Devers.
If we’re talking entire majors, Devers isn’t in the same galaxy as Ohtani.
Either way, Devers isn’t going to be the winner.
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.
No doubt Story had a huge comeback, but I wouldn’t rule out DeGrom
MLB – Agreed, he is certainly in the running.
@MLB —That would be great
No way .. you are a Red Sox fan right?
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.
midknight – Sorry no offense, but I don’t understand why people post things that are totally false …. especially when it can easily be proven false.
The Yankees did not win nearly as often when Judge did not play, in fact the Marlins even swept them in a 3-game series with Judge sitting out all the games.
I’m not bothering to look this up, but when Judge went out the offense AND defense of the team went sharply down. I don’t understand why you are of that opinion. It sounds like “Yankees derangement Syndrome” to me. How many players have hit 50+ homers in a season AND hit .330 in a season in which a player makes big money for a batting line of .260/.320/.400 since 1960? Chew on that for awhile. And yes, Raleigh’s season was truly great, truly great. But come on!
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.
Acoss – Yeah I remembered that happening in 1979, I’m surprised there’s never been another tie for any MVP award.
Good thing for Keith they didn’t use a tie-breaker, as Willie had 6 more first place votes than him.
Ironically it was Winfield who had the best season that year, but the Padres sucked and the Pirates were the best team in the league and Keith hit .344 that year.
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.
WAR is great for determining the most valuable fantasy league player. It removes all intangibles. Judge had a spectacular year, but the Yankee lineup was stronger. Cal was more valuable to the weaker Seattle lineup, and also effected the pitching staff with his game calling and defense.
stymee – I think Cal will win because of the uniqueness of a catcher doing what he did, and because it would be his first while Judge has multiple MVP’s already.
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.
@Ben4MVP
My point is that Polanco’s value is concentrated in the moments that actually decide games—high-leverage situations where a single play can make or break the outcome. Clutch captures that, and there’s something to be said for players who consistently deliver in those pressure spots.
WPA is great for measuring total contribution across the season, but it treats every plate appearance proportionally. Clutch highlights who performs when the stakes are highest. Baseball games aren’t decided in low-leverage situations; they’re decided in the 7th/8th/9th innings with runners on. That’s why I think high-Clutch players deserve recognition even if their counting stats aren’t as flashy.
MVP isn’t just the best player in aggregate—it’s the player whose contributions are most impactful to winning. Sometimes that means leading in WAR, but sometimes it means performing when it matters most. That’s why I’d argue Polanco has a strong case.
Ha ha ha … please. And… no pundit says this at all on the commentary tv or print
@yankeemanuno23
More weak arguments supporting HRs and hits in irrelevant situations. That’s not valuable, c’mon, man!
But what’s relevant?
Much of what Judge, Raleigh, and other big time offensive players do is ensure that there is no crunch time ‘high leverage’ situation. They help their team get out to a lot of leads that the team never relinquishes and where there is no close finish that requires ‘clutch’ performance.
A guy that comes in clutch is great. A guy who decides the game long before ‘clutch’ time may be even more valuable.
@Canuckleball
Then the question remains, how do you define what the most valuable means?
‘Most Valuable’ has always been a rather nebulous term.
I actually like what the Canadian Football League did. They named their award “The Most Outstanding Player”. It makes it more clear that it’s for the best player overall.
WAR treats all leverage equally, but WPA does not. It weights based on leverage. So Judge being ahead of Polanco there means he actually did more offensively to swing games in his team’s favor.
@Ben4MVP
Yes, WPA already weights performance by leverage, so it’s a great measure of total game impact. But WPA still rewards players for having more opportunities to swing games, not just what they did with those opportunities.
Clutch isolates how much better or worse a player performed when the pressure ramped up. In that sense, it captures something WPA doesn’t — how a player responded to those high-leverage spots relative to their baseline.
Judge had more total impact, no question. But Polanco’s performance jump in those make-or-break moments arguably changed the tone of his team’s season. If we’re talking about “Most Valuable,” there’s a case that being elite when everything’s on the line deserves heavier weight than just accumulating steady production across 600 plate appearances.
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.
Remember they gave Cliff Lee, Fernando Rodney, Rick Porcello, Brad Lidge, Fransisco Liriano (the second time),Casey McGehee, Daniel Bard, Albert Pujols, and Cody Bellinger the “Comeback” Player of the Year award even though the only thing they “came back” from was being godawful the year before?
And Buster Posey got one in 2021 when all he did was skip work in 2020?
It really cheapened the award.
Judge should be MVP. Cal had an all time season but so did Judge and his production was a lot better across the board.
Co- MVP’s Judge & Cal… if there ever was a season where these types of numbers and contribution were so impactful, this 2025 season is the one!
If Ohtani had Soto’s numbers they would still be called for him to win it. Soto led the league in OBP and steals, much like Ohtani last year. Hitting a few more solo homers isn’t that important. And as for his pitching, that separates him next year. 47 innings as an opener doesn’t offset that he doesn’t play defense.
So, no love at all for the guy who won a silver slugger and platinum glove at shortstop?