It’s everyone’s favorite season — no, not fall … awards! Before the postseason begins with the Wild Card Series on Friday, we thought it was a good time to poll The Athletic’s writers on the MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year and Manager of the Year races. Needless to say, things look a lot different now than when we asked our writers to make their preseason predictions.
So over the last week, we asked our writers (more than 30 in all) to vote for who they think should win these awards, not who they think will win when the results are revealed in November. Check out the results below, and tell us what you think in the comments.
AL MVP
Andy McCullough (Pick: Judge): We love the discourse, don’t we folks?
Levi Weaver (Judge): I’m not completely convicted on this; it’s always going to be hard for me not to vote for the guy who is both a great hitter and a great pitcher, when speaking in terms of “value” but my goodness, how can you not vote for Aaron Judge this year?
Andrew Baggarly (Judge): There might be five individual seasons in baseball history that could outrank what Shohei Ohtani has done this year. Aaron Judge is having one of them.
Chad Jennings (Judge): Shohei Ohtani is the most valuable player in baseball, but in terms of the way we tend to think of the MVP award, I think it will end up going to Judge.
Steve Berman (Judge): They’re both making history.
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