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Mlb Award Predictions Opta Analyst

Bonisiwe Shabane
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mlb award predictions opta analyst

MLB writers Zach Crizer and Ryan Fagan make their 2025 picks for all the major awards: MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year, plus Comeback Player of the Year. Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, rinse and repeat? Not so fast. Though Major League Baseball has some absolute titans gobbling up the black ink and gold-plated plaques, 162 games of baseball always produces surprises. Which young players will take leaps forward? Can anyone slow down the rise of Paul Skenes?

And how will Ohtani look once he’s in pursuit of hitting and pitching glory once again? Ahead of opening day, it’s time to do some ill-fated forecasting of the award winners. Last year, MLB writers Ryan Fagan and Zach Crizer didn’t do too badly, combining to correctly pick Tarik Skubal as AL Cy Young, and name eventual winners Chris Sale and Skenes as dark horses... Below, they make this year’s selections for all the major awards: MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year, plus Comeback Player of the Year: That's officially a wrap on the 2025 MLB season. The hot stove season is already burning, but even amid the roster shuffling for the 2026 season, we had one last bit of 2025 business: handing out the major awards.

The most prestigious are the four major honors determined by BBWAA voting. These awards will have a lasting impact on baseball history books and Hall of Fame résumés. On Monday, Athletics first baseman Nick Kurtz was unanimously selected as the American League Rookie of the Year, and Atlanta Braves rookie catcher Drake Baldwin earned the National League honor. Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy and Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt each won their second consecutive Manager of the Year Award on Tuesday. The 2025 MLB awards season is barreling toward its finale, with the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) unveiling its annual honors for the sport’s top performers. All week, fans and analysts have been picking apart the Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year, Cy Young, and MVP races in both leagues.

This year, the awards come with extra drama. Record-setting performances and some familiar faces have stirred up predictions of historic moments. Let’s take a look at the projected winners and what’s made them stand out in a season that’s felt more competitive than most. The AL MVP talk usually circles around stars like Aaron Judge and José Ramírez. But this season, Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh has stolen the spotlight. Raleigh smashed 60 home runs—a jaw-dropping number for any player, let alone a catcher.

He set a new standard for offensive production behind the plate, and it’s hard not to be impressed by that kind of firepower. Power-hitting catchers just don’t come around often. Raleigh managed to dominate at the plate while handling a pitching staff, which is a tough balancing act. The 2025 Major League Baseball season has arrived with the first pitch thrown in Japan between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs. It’s the start of an exciting baseball season coming off a winter that saw the likes of Juan Soto, Blake Snell and Corbin Burnes find new homes. With the season underway, we’ve got MLB award predictions for the 2025 campaign.

The Boston Red Sox made several big moves this offseason, with the most significant being the Garrett Crochet trade. In 2024 with the Chicago White Sox, Crochet earned his first All-Star selection and was named the AL Comeback Player of the Year. Now the 25-year-old southpaw gets to pitch at the front of a rotation for a contender. Crochet already has the swing-and-miss stuff – MLB-best 35.1% strikeout rate in 2024 – to compete for the Cy Young Award. He also easily outperformed (2.53 SIERA) his ERA (3.58) last season. With a chance to win 13-plus games backed by a strong lineup, Crochet will deliver a sub-3 ERA with 200-plus strikeouts to take home the AL Cy Young award for the AL East champion...

Related: Best baseball players of all time The Los Angeles Dodgers have several other Cy Young Award candidates to choose from – Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto – but Blake Snell is our choice. He got off to an abysmal start in 2024 with the San Francisco Giants, having a 9.51 ERA, a .308 batting average allowed and a 1.94 WHIP in his first six starts. After returning from the IL, he held opponents to a .123 BAA with a 0.78 WHIP and 1.23 ERA, striking out 38.1% of batters faced across 80.1 innings pitched. While replicating those numbers is out of the question, Snell could be a 15-game winner with a sub-3.2 ERA and 200-plus strikeouts for the best team in baseball. Related: Los Angeles Dodgers game today, Dodgers schedule

Every new MLB season feels like a fresh canvas — a place where legends are born, records shattered, and surprises lurk behind every pitch. As 2025 dawns, you might be wondering: will the familiar names like Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge keep hogging the spotlight, or is this the year the underdogs stake their claim? With the grueling grind of 162 games promising unpredictability, MLB insiders Zach Crizer and Ryan Fagan are taking a shot at the impossible — predicting who’ll snag this year’s MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of... Sure, last year their crystal ball wasn’t flawless but hey, they nailed some picks that had heads nodding. So, fasten your seatbelts, because the 2025 award race might just be as thrilling—and as surprising—as ever. LEARN MORE Really, take your pick.

Jobe is considered the top pitching prospect in the game by some evaluators, so he’s a solid choice. In Boston, phenom Kristian Campbell got the nod to start the season in the bigs, and both Roman Anthony and Marcelo Meyer are just waiting for their shot at regular MLB at-bats. If Jasson Dominguez can stay healthy, he could have a big year for the Yankees. The guy who is our dark horse only has that status because the Royals seem intent on keeping him in the minors for at least a couple months. The AL is stacked with rookies who could make a huge impact this year (hi, Kumar Rocker!). The Dark Horse: One of the Seattle Mariners’ stable of excellent young arms, Bryan Woo has a very particular, very potent superpower.

He can, and does, throw his fastball right down Main Street and get whiffs. Thanks to a low arm angle and gravity-defying jump, he has a fantastic base that keeps him in command (above-average 105 command+). If he can amp up the rest of the arsenal even a little bit, he’s going to be dangerous. The Dark Horse: Sure, it’s early, but Jac Caglianone is already looking like a steal as the No. 6 overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft. The Kansas City Royals brought him to big-league camp this spring to give him a taste of better pitching, and he responded by looking big-league ready.

Spring training numbers are to be taken with a grain of salt, of course, but he hit .500 with three homers and three doubles and more walks than strikeouts in 23 plate appearances. He’s ticketed for Double-A to get more experience and maybe learn a corner outfield spot, but his bat could get him promoted sooner than the Royals expected a few months ago.  We’re going with Alcantara, though. The 2022 NL Cy Young is fully recovered from the Tommy John surgery he had in October 2023, and he looked fantastic this spring. He’s a workhorse, on the mound and in the training room, and appears determined to show that he can once again be an elite starter. Don’t bet against him.

The Dark Horse: Does Cooperstown-bound right-hander Justin Verlander have one (or more) All-Star caliber season left in that golden right arm? He made 17 starts last year, but produced the worst numbers of his career for the Astros with a 5.48 ERA, career-worst 9.8 H/9 and career-low 7.4 K/9. He’s looked healthy and effective this spring for the San Francisco Giants, though, and haven’t we learned not to count out Verlander? 54 Years Strong! A Trusted Leader In Sports Picks, Best Bets and Predictions Since 1971. One E-mail A Week Is All You Need!

Our weekly newsletter is loaded with exclusive free picks, insight and advice from our expert handicappers With half the season behind us, now is a great time to reassess the odds-on MLB Player Awards this season. As of now, the MVP races favor a repeat winner in both leagues, while the AL Cy Young race also favors a repeat winner. While there are plenty of games left on the schedule, the closest race is the NL Rookie of the Year. Just one injury or cold spell could drastically alter the odds for any of these awards. With the All-Star Break near, let’s analyze the MVP, Cy Young, and Rookie of the Year races in each league.

Doc’s Sports offers MLB expert picks for every game on our baseball predictions page. Aaron Judge is looking to win his second consecutive AL MVP award this season and the oddsmakers are making him the heavy favorite at the end of June. He leads the pack with -950 odds with Cal Raleigh (+480) and Jeremy Pena (+6500) following. Judge leads the league in AVG (.361), WAR (5.8), and OPS (1.180) while also in a tie for second in the MLB in homeruns (28) and he is fifth in RBIs (63). Judge has more protection in the lineup this season with Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt, and Trent Grisham performing better than expected. Raleigh is the only other player who is relatively close to Judge.

Raleigh leads the league in homeruns (32) and in RBIs (69) while ranking second in OPS (1.031) and fourth in WAR (4.4). The Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw address the fans following a parade celebrating their World Series victory. (0:52) Bradford DoolittleNov 10, 2025, 07:00 AM ETCloseMLB writer and analyst for ESPN.com Former NBA writer and analyst for ESPN.com Been with ESPN since 2013The hot stove season is already burning, but even amid the... These are the ones that will generate the most future attention in baseball history books and on Hall of Fame résumés of the future. The schedule (awards will be announced starting at 7 p.m.

ET each night on MLB Network):Today: Jackie Robinson Rookies of the YearTuesday: Managers of the YearWednesday: Cy Young AwardsThursday: MVP AwardsIn addition, MLB will hold its annual awards show in Las Vegas on Thursday,... The Executive of the Year Award will also be announced.I’ll be reacting to each night’s awards announcement throughout the week, but in the meantime, here are some opening comments, as well as some brief... We’ll update each section with news and analysis as the awards are handed out.Jump to:MVP: AL | NLCy Young: AL | NLRookie of the Year: AL | NLManager of the Year: AL | NLAmerican... According to my AXE rating, which is an index that expresses the consensus of the leading bottom-line metrics, the winner is Judge (164 to 150) and it’s not particularly close.Despite the easy statistical case... And that’s not to undersell Raleigh’s metrics, which are more than MVP-worthy. But despite another historic season from Judge, I’m going with Raleigh.What it’s really like facing Aaron JudgeWe asked everyone from MLB aces and former college rivals to a tech salesman for their best tales...

Facing Judge » Again, we’ll get into the nitty gritty of the numbers later, but the soft factors that swing my thinking are these: Raleigh’s 60-homer season is the stuff of science fiction when... It not only shattered the single-season mark for the position, but it broke Mickey Mantle’s record for homers by a switch-hitter. Mickey freaking Mantle. And Raleigh’s a (darn good) catcher!Finally, Raleigh did all of this as the defensive anchor and clubhouse leader on a division champion. There aren’t many seasons when I’d pick someone as MVP over the 2025 version of Aaron Judge, but this is one of them. Sure, I’m a stat guy, so this feels like a departure from that foundation, but sometimes a narrative is just too compelling to ignore.Finally, poor Jose Ramirez.

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