Welcome back to our first MLB Monday miniseries as the 2025 season came to an end awhile ago, and the award winners were announced in November. It’s been a year since our last edition of this column, so we will do what we have done here for all the professional baseball seasons in North America: analyze awards and make sure the right people get them here. Remember the tagline: often wrong yet never in doubt! Doh!

2025 AL MVP: Aaron Judge, RF, New York (original); Cal Raleigh, C, Seattle (revised)

New York Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge (9.7 WAR) won the vote again. But as he has hit his 30s, his defense has declined, yet he finished 2.3 WAR clear of the field for a team that finished with the most wins in the league. Therein lies the rub: his minus-0.5 dWAR cost him a historic season and a lock for this award. Meanwhile, Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh (7.4 WAR) posted a positive dWAR mark, surprisingly.

We have not been able to give a lot of MVP nods to subpar defenders, and we won’t start now. But the Yankees’ overall strength hurts Judge, too, as the Mariners needed every ounce of WAR from Raleigh: Seattle only made the postseason by three games, while the Yankees made it by seven games. The value is more readily clear with the Big Dumper (worst nickname ever, though). This is a surprise to us, really.

In early September, these dWAR marks had been reversed, if we remember correctly: Judge was in the positive, and Raleigh was in the negative. But that’s why they play all the games, and while Judge dipped in the final month of play—maybe due to his advanced age (33)—Raleigh, at age 28, just got stronger. And the Ms really needed that to win the AL West Division. We revise this award, which is an act we didn’t expect.

2025 NL MVP: Shohei Ohtani, DH/SP, Los Angeles (original, confirmed)

This vote went to Los Angeles Dodgers two-way player Shohei Ohtani (6.6 WAR), again. That mark is his overall mark as a position player, and it doesn’t count the 1.1 WAR he added as a pitcher in 47 innings pitched. Either way, that was the second-best mark in the league behind Arizona Diamondbacks shortstop Gerald Perdomo (7.0). Yet his team didn’t finish above .500, so we can’t consider him for this award, obvi.

Who else can compete with Shohei? Really only Chicago Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner (6.0 WAR): his team won only one less game than Los Angeles, although both teams were well clear of the final playoff spot. Thus, either team would have made the postseason without their star players, in theory. This brings up the interesting case of New York Mets RF Juan Soto (6.2), but his defense was ugly (minus-1.3 dWAR). So no!

See what we did there? Terrible, we know. But we digress: we confirm Ohtani’s vote, all things being thus.

2025 AL Cy Young: Tarik Skubal, SP, Detroit (original, confirmed)

Three pitchers topped 6.0 WAR in the junior circuit: vote winner Tarik Skubal (6.5) of Detroit; youngster Garrett Crochet (6.3) of Boston; and rising star Hunter Brown (6.1) of Houston. The Trashstros missed the postseason, thankfully, for the first time since 2016, so Brown is out. The Tigers snagged the final postseason berth, finished two games behind the Red Sox in the wild-card chase, so this is a clear decision.

We confirm Skubal’s second consecutive award here. He topped the AL in ERA and WHIP, among other categories, and in the last two seasons, he has provided 12.9 WAR to the Tigers’ two straight playoff berths. The franchise had not made the postseason since 2014 prior to last season, so Skubal’s contributions cannot be understated. Crochet topped the league in strikeouts, but it’s not enough to dethrone the Detroit ace.

2025 NL Cy Young: Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh (original); Cristopher Sánchez, Philadelphia (revised)

Over in the senior circuit, Pittsburgh Pirates phenom Paul Skenes won the vote with 7.7 WAR, a year after he won the ROTY vote—quite the start to his career. However, we didn’t give him that award here, and we’re not giving him this award, either. Why? Two reasons: first, his team came up 12 wins short of a playoff spot, and second, Philadelphia Phillies ace Cristopher Sánchez (8.0) was better while pitching for a playoff team.

Simple as that. We respect Skenes, but the mediot bandwagon was totally wrong here, for the above two reasons: he wasn’t the best pitcher in the league, and he didn’t pitch a single important game all year, in terms of playoff pressure, etc. This is an age-old argument, we know, but there is no excuse to give the award to a guy pitching for a last-place team—unless he has a historic season, which Skenes did not. Done.

2025 AL ROTY: Nick Kurtz, 1B, Athletics (original); Roman Anthony, OF, Boston (revised)

Vagabond Athletics first baseman Nick Kurtz (5.4 WAR) won the vote here for a team that finished under .500, so we won’t be confirming this, as much as we respect what Kurtz did this year at age 22. There are great things ahead for him. Our real candidates for this hardware are two Boston Red Sox players, actually, which enabled the team to trade its overpriced “star” away while still making the postseason. Well done.

Normally, teammates would cancel each other out, but there are no other true contenders here: outfielder Roman Anthony (3.1 WAR) and catcher Carlos Narváez (2.6). Both were positive defenders, although the latter was a stellar backstop, defensively. Either way, we’ll give this to the former for his higher overall WAR mark—accrued in just 71 games, no less. That’s is scary, so it makes sense why the Red Sox made their move.

2025 NL ROTY: Drake Baldwin, C, Atlanta (original); Matt Shaw, 3B, Chicago (revised)

Same situation here: the award winner—Atlanta Braves catcher Drake Baldwin (3.3 WAR)—played for a team that finished well under .500 for the year, so who is the real winner now? Well, the Milwaukee Brewers won the most games in the majors (97) thanks to three rookies who all finished with at least 1.9 WAR, which cancels them all out. However, the only other contenders are two Cubs players, so … dilemmas! What to do?

Chicago third baseman Matt Shaw (3.1 WAR) posted the highest mark among the five candidates here, with a 1.7 dWAR mark, as well. Plus, the Cubs had fewer standout rookies than the Brewers did, while winning “only” 92 games. Thus, he beats out Milwaukee 3B Caleb Durbin (2.8); Brewers left fielder Isaac Collins (2.1); Chicago SP Cade Horton (2.0); and Brew Crew SP Chad Patrick (1.9). That’s the straight shot here.