2025 Awards

I know some people hate them--or at least protracted arguments about them--so, after lots of Judge/Raleigh discussion dominating the general regular-season thread the past few days, here's a separate one. Jayson Stark posted his picks today:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6663004/2025/09/26/mlb-awards-2025-mvp-cy-young-rookies/

Judge, Ohtani (he can't say as a voter, but obviously), Skubal, Skenes.

I don't have much regard for Stark based on the one book of his I read, so I'm not posting to say "See, he picked Judge." Something from his long explanation:

The catcher for the Mariners isn’t the only man in this debate who’s making history.

I don’t know if it’s hit you yet that Aaron Judge is having another one of those seasons. It’s easier to lock in on when all you have to do is count home runs. But just because Judge isn’t going to make that kind of history this year, we shouldn’t overlook the staggering season he is having, while reviving his team from an August funk and leading it back to October.

Unless something weird happens this weekend, he’s going to lead his league in average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, runs scored, total bases, walks, most times on base, Win Probability Added and wins above replacement. Does that seem good?

Here’s how good it is. The MVP award has existed, in its present form, since 1931. If Judge wins, this will be the complete list of players who have led either league in all those categories in a season since 1931:

Ted Williams, 1942
Ted Williams, 1947
Aaron Judge, 2025

A Rube Goldberg list: stuff that most fans are cognizant of (the three slash stats, maybe WAR by now) and stuff that very few ever think about (me included--Win Probability Added). So I'm not sure that's much of an argument. This is a better one, I think:

Check out the distance between him and the next best hitters in his league in the three categories that define the greatness of modern hitters: OBP, slugging percentage and OPS.

OBP — by 63* points (over George Springer).
Slugging percentage — by 83* points (over Raleigh).
OPS — by 177* points (over Raleigh).

(*through Wednesday)

What a landslide. Or is that three landslides? Again, let’s go back to 1931, when the MVP was born. Here are all the hitters in the 95 seasons since then who have led their league in OBP by 50-plus points, in slugging by 80-plus points and in OPS by at least 100 points:

Ted Williams, four times (1941-42-47-49)
Barry Bonds, four times (2001-02-03-04)

Only problem there is redundancy, in that the third category is derived from the first two.

And I agree with this:

There are no wrong answers in this debate! I wish I could cast this imaginary vote for the catcher for the Mariners. But it’s not an insult to Raleigh to say he finished second to the greatest right-handed hitter of the last 100 years: Aaron J. Judge.

Whoever wins, I think you can absolutely say something that isn't always true of MVPs who play for playoff-bound teams: without them, no way either team makes the postseason.

judge has been on a tear to close it out. 2-4 today with another homer, up to 53 now. think it’s his unless raleigh can find a way to hit 3 homers in the last 2 games

The replacement level broadcasters Apple has working for them were saying Raleigh should be the mvp because home runs and catcher. Switched to the radio feed.

I just posted about how Vlad's done close to nothing the past week (one big hit)...I know it's a completely unfair comparison, but I look at what Judge is doing during crunch time and I just sigh.

I mean, I think I'd settle for half what Judge has done the past week.

Ha--Posnanski's "Choose Your Own Adventure" MVP game (hope the link works):

https://judge-vs-raleigh.netlify.app/?utm_source=www.joeposnanski.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=an-mvp-choose-your-own-adventure-game&_bhlid=b01095e60e7c30f2cba52cf258ed5f454cfbe6bd#q1=0&q2=1&q3=1&q4=4&q5=1&q6=0

You answer six questions to find out who your AL MVP pick is.

Your MVP: Aaron Judge by an inch.

Inch I could do without! Head vs. Heart dilemma this one

I got "Aaron Judge comfortably", although my true feelings are somewhat different.

Two important points in the case for Raleigh:

1) catcher contributions are never fully captured by WAR
2) if a player accomplishes something that no player **at his position** has ever done in a century and a half of organized major league baseball, then it's worth extra considerations when it comes to awards season

I'm not saying that I would definitely vote for Raleigh or that Judge isn't making history of his own, but Raleigh has a *very* strong case.

could you say more when you say catcher contributions are never fully captured by WAR?

I think that many catching skills aren't properly accounted for, such as pitch calling, controlling the pace of the game, working with pitchers, directing the defense, managing the running gane, and plays at home. Not to mention pitch framing.

Catchers also don't play every day (unless they DH) which creates an inherent bias for giving out awards based on cumulative stats. It doesn't seem right that a player at the most important defensive position can't win an MVP because he's limited to about 130 games.

not playing every day limits your value though. you can’t help your team if you’re on the bench. I don’t think it’s quite right to term that a “bias”, it’s just reflecting reality. value is cumulative. this is why a lot of promising catchers end up changing positions when they’re younger (biggio and harper are two examples but there are many). the overall talent pool of the position is sapped a bit because of that.

I do take the argument that there are skills unique to catchers, but they are not really measurable (apart from pitch framing, the precision of which is a bit controversial), so I think you just have to assume rough equality across catchers even though it’s surely not the case. but I don’t know how you’d account for that, aside from increasing the positional adjustment, which is already 67% higher than the next most difficult position.

I’m not *not* open to the idea that the positional adjustment should be greater. it’s just not something I’ve seen mentioned a lot by people outside this board

I'm not saying there should be a larger, arbitrary positional adjustment. I think that WAR doesn't account for a catcher's full contributions toward winning games. I'm not sure how to quantify it, but those skills are integral to the game, so they must have value.

we’re saying the same thing I think. if there is value there that can’t be measured, and it’s specific to catchers, then it stands to reason all catchers should get a boost in positional adjustment

I just am not sure that the +12.5 positional adjustment is inadequate. maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. I’d love to read something where someone who’s studied this explains their thoughts

alright, I understood about half of this, but jeff zimmerman went through this about 10 years ago, and his main conclusion was that the historical defensive hierarchy is essentially right, but too extreme. he lands at about +8 runs per 162 (instead of +12.5 as it is now) for catchers and -9 for 1B/DH (compared to -12.5 and -17.5; the discussion about DHs being over-penalized is interesting and basically comes down to [1] it's hard to hit well when you're not playing the field, similar to pinch-hitting and [2] a lot of the DH offensive data is skewed by players underperforming due to being assigned to play DH when they're not completely healthy)

https://tht.fangraphs.com/re-examining-wars-defensive-spectrum/

I do take the argument that there are skills unique to catchers, but they are not really measurable

I got "Aaron Judge comfortably", although my true feelings are somewhat different.

Exactly the same. I didn't minimize catcher defense, pitch framing, or "who's got the best story?" when I answered; I came down in the middle on all of them, and I thought I'd register as "leaning Judge." Must be something about the way the scoring was designed.

2) if a player accomplishes something that no player **at his position** has ever done in a century and a half of organized major league baseball, then it's worth extra considerations when it comes to awards season

A little, maybe; that's a big reason why Maury Wills won in '62 (when Mays, Aaron, and Robinson were having huge seasons), and I also think it had something to do with Willie Hernandez winning in '84. I checked back and my memory was right: he was 32/32 in save opportunities until Sept. 28, when he blew his first and only one of the whole season. I think the notion of perfection had been cemented in voter's minds by then (I remember hearing it a lot) and that that helped him win. I'm guessing you can find all kinds of uniqueness in Judge's season, too, starting with no batting champion having ever hit 53 home runs.

to add to what kevin said, iirc fangraphs went and re-evaluated fWAR for framing about 10 years go and a lot of catchers values shifted, mostly positively (and some cases dramatically) as they felt it had been undervalued up until then.

so, for example, Russ Martin - who i know fangraphs loved - has a career WAR that is 16 points higher with them vs bbref.
in Raleigh's case this year, bWAR is 7.3 and fWAR is 9. pretty big gap.

Martin's corrections were for pitch framing IIRC. But that's just one skill.

One precedent for Raleigh winning would be Eric Gagne's Cy Young award from 2003. He wasn't the best pitcher in the league but he had (arguably) the most dominant season ever by a closer, and that's why he won. If you want to devalue closers in general then that's fine, there's no real counter to that. But it's a "position" and being historically great at that position for a season counts for something (obviously it's a lot more significant when it's a catcher).

I think that’s pretty instructive as an example, vis a vis the “bias” against catchers. everyone has different criteria! to me, if you’re a closer, or a catcher, you don’t get special credit because you play part time

Mike Marshall won a Cy Young almost wholly for a unique accomplishment (and still a record).

I’m very drunk. Help me out and tell me what that record was

Pitched in 106 games. Otherwise, 2.42, 21 saves, 15-12 (!), and 3.1 WAR.

Science-fiction from the vantage point of 2025.

so most games.

but best season ever for a reliever? I TTHINK NOT!

That's what I'm saying--you're very drunk--it wasn't an especially distinguished season outside of the freakish number of games.