The baseball offseason has felt pretty normal so far, at least if you can put the overhanging labor negotiations out of your mind. Some of that normalcy comes from the gradual easing into the initial phases of the hot stove season -- contract options, roster maneuvering, free agency filing -- that point toward next season.
That's administrative stuff, though, and not as fun as the parade in Milwaukee, or this week, when MLB hands out its major awards in what more or less closes the books on the 2026 season.
This year's awards week is an expansion of the usual routine because we have a new honor being handed out by the Baseball Writers' Association of America: the Reliever of the Year Award, which recognizes the top bullpen maestro from each league. Here's how this week's schedule lays out:
Monday: Rookie of the Year (7 p.m. ET, MLB Network)
Tuesday: Manager of the Year (7 p.m. ET, MLB Network)
Wednesday: Cy Young and Reliever of the Year (7 p.m. ET, MLB Network)
Thursday: MVP (7 p.m. ET, MLB Network)
MLB Network will also air the MLB awards given out during a live ceremony in Las Vegas at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday. Honors given out then include the Hank Aaron Award, Comeback Player of the Year, Mariano Rivera & Trevor Hoffman Relievers of the Year, Edgar Martinez Outstanding Designated Hitter Award and selections for the All-MLB first and second teams.
Finalists for the major awards have already been announced. So let's see how things look before the hardware is handed out. Who might win? Who should win?
Most Valuable Player
American League
Finalists:
Yordan Alvarez, Houston Astros
Junior Caminero, Tampa Bay Rays
Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City Royals
What to know: Here are the OPS+ figures for the qualifying hitters who ranked second through sixth in the AL: 153, 149, 148, 146 and 144. No. 1? That would be Alvarez ... at 190. He dominated the leaderboards for AL hitters at a Wilt Chamberlain-like level, sweeping all the slash categories and falling one homer and seven RBIs shy of a Triple Crown.
Alvarez made that production count, pacing AL hitters in win probability added (6.9), with a figure that was 68% better than the second-place finisher, Pete Alonso. At 81-81, Alvarez's Astros barely eked out a postseason spot. Without him, they would have been lottery-bound for sure.
Witt should remain a fixture in the finalist group for years to come. He was an easy pick once again this season even though, by his stratospheric standards, it wasn't his best year. He's just so good at so many things that the secondary parts of his game add elite value even when his batting line is more good than great.
AXE did not see Caminero as the third finalist, though it's hard to fault the voters for picking him. From a metrics standpoint, at least the ones that feed AXE, the issue was situational hitting. Caminero ranked fourth in the AL in batting runs above average, but just 12th in the win probability added by all that production.
Doolittle's pick: Alvarez
National League
Finalists:
Pete Crow-Armstrong, Chicago Cubs
Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers
Brice Turang, Milwaukee Brewers
What to know: AXE and the BBWAA were in lockstep when it came to identifying the finalists. And, really, the drama in this race was more or less over by the time we hit Labor Day. Crow-Armstrong just kept getting better and better while Ohtani struggled with injuries so nagging that he had little impact in October.
The trajectory of the race shows us how much of a tease it was for a few weeks there. After Ohtani built a huge and predictable lead early in the season, Crow-Armstrong took off in June (he posted a 1.249 OPS for the month) and just kept going. By the beginning of August, he had overtaken Ohtani in AXE, and with the Dodgers headed to Wrigley Field on Aug. 3, it felt like we were watching an epic head-to-head race that would be one for the history books.
It was, but only for Crow-Armstrong, who posted one of the best two-way seasons in baseball history. Well, make that three-way. In the subcategories of bWAR, PCA led the NL in both batting runs above average (44) and baserunning runs (9), and ranked third in fielding runs (16). That's how you end up with 9.8 bWAR -- the fourth-best total by a Cubs hitter in the franchise's 151-year history.
Ohtani's greatness is hardly diminished by his 2026 season. Look where he is on this leaderboard despite playing injured for much of the second half of the season. As for the often-overlooked Turang, he'll likely have to content himself with the championship ring he'll get when next season begins. It's a trade-off he'll be happy to make.
Doolittle's pick: Crow-Armstrong
Cy Young
American League
Finalists:
Dylan Cease, Toronto Blue Jays
Parker Messick, Cleveland Guardians
Cam Schlittler, New York Yankees
What to know: Schlittler has been amazingly consistent during his young big league career, and when you're as good as he is, that's a very good thing. Over 51 career starts, including the postseason, Schlittler has a 2.16 ERA, 0.99 WHIP and an average game score of 61.5.
It's hard to believe that, entering the season, we were wondering whether his late-season run as a rookie in 2025 was for real. It was, and Schlittler is one of the best pitchers in the game. His 215 ERA+ was the best by a qualifying Yankees pitcher in franchise history. Better than Ron Guidry, circa 1978. Better than Lefty Gomez, Whitey Ford ... Schlittler tops them all.
When you look at the progression of the AXE leaderboard, it was pretty much a wire-to-wire win for Schlittler, and I suspect he'll be a near-unanimous choice when the AL Cy Young is announced. But it wasn't a runaway. Messick, as a rookie, was almost as good as Schlittler and just as consistent, and Cease came on strong during the second half.
The voters got it right when landing on a top three, and they'll get it right when Schlittler joins Bob Turley, Ford, Sparky Lyle, Guidry, Roger Clemens and Gerrit Cole as the Yankees pitchers who have won a Cy Young.
Doolittle's pick: Schlittler
National League
Finalists:
Jacob Misiorowski, Milwaukee Brewers
Chris Sale, Atlanta Braves
Cristopher Sanchez, Philadelphia Phillies
What to know: This could be an interesting vote, though I strongly suspect Misiorowski will win handily. Sanchez has ranked slightly ahead of Misiorowski in AXE all season, largely because of an overwhelming edge in bWAR (8.1 to 6.5) that I don't fully buy into. AXE seeks to balance such measures against each other, but that much of an advantage in one of the two most important categories is hard to overcome. I dug into this race in the final Awards Watch of the regular season.
Ultimately, each of the top six pitchers listed on the AXE leaderboard in this category had an overwhelming season. It was a really good campaign for star-level pitching performances in the Senior Circuit. I favor Misiorowski not just for his dominance -- his league-leading 252 strikeouts and 13 whiffs per nine innings -- but for his consistency. The measure I track related to this is game-score record -- how often a starting pitcher posted a higher game score than the opposing starter on a game-by-game basis. Misiorowski went 25-5 in his 30 starts, easily the best record in the majors.
See that? I made Misiorowski's case and didn't even mention his velocity once.
Doolittle's pick: Misiorowski
Reliever of the Year
American League
Finalists:
Bryan Baker, Tampa Bay Rays
Cade Smith, Cleveland Guardians
Louis Varland, Toronto Blue Jays
What to know: I am a little dubious about the creation of this subcategory of pitching awards, which debuts this season, mostly because the roles of hurlers and the labels that apply to them evolve so much over time, now more than ever. Just to cite one example, here are some numbers for one lights-out reliever this season:
IP: 35 ⅓
W-L: 4-0
ERA: 1.53
K/BB: 36/9
The pitcher in question is Chicago White Sox righty Sean Burke, who compiled these numbers over six relief appearances in the regular season and the playoffs. That average of nearly six innings per relief appearance gives us some crucial context -- these were all bulk relief appearances made in games started by an opener. These numbers weren't compiled by a reliever, per se, but they don't belong in the starter's bucket, either.
All we know for sure these days is that pitchers are pitchers. We have to work hard to measure them in the context in which they are used. More and more, the old starter/reliever distinction is showing wear and tear. I don't think this trend will end any time soon, and I'd hate to see this award become something akin to a regurgitated saves leaderboard, especially because the save is a weak stat to begin with.
Doolittle's pick: I cast a vote for this award, so I'm going to hold off on revealing my pick here. The full voting results will be posted here after the winners are announced. I also blanked out my pick for the Mariano Rivera Award below, because it would naturally be the same pick. I will say that my choices for any award don't necessarily match the AXE leaderboard precisely.
National League
Finalists:
Jhoan Duran, Philadelphia Phillies
Trevor Megill, Milwaukee Brewers
Mason Miller, San Diego Padres
What to know: Miller is the game's most dominant pitcher, and he demonstrated that in every significant measure by which I evaluate relievers. He recorded 129 strikeouts in just 70 innings and did so with pinpoint command, leading all of baseball with a K-BB% of 37.9% -- 6.6 percentage points higher than Misiorowski's, just to draw one comparison. He led all pitchers in win probability added. And he was consistent, earning a 54-12 record in terms of landing above average in WPA on a game-by-game basis, a plus-42 finish that led the majors.
This is a vote that should not be close.
Doolittle's pick: Miller
Rookie of the Year
American League
Finalists:
Kevin McGonigle, Detroit Tigers
Parker Messick, Cleveland Guardians
Payton Tolle, Boston Red Sox
What to know: You can simply glance at a couple of the other AXE leaderboards to get an idea of just how good this AL rookie class was. McGonigle was one of the AL's top overall players as a rookie, and Messick one of the top pitchers. Both have performed at elite levels since entering the majors, and the choice between them is not an easy one.
McGonigle is the favorite and my pick. He was Detroit's best player from the first game of the season, when his grinding approach at the plate was already on full display. He finished 12th in the AL in batting average, sixth in on-base percentage, 14th in OPS and 11th in WPA. At 21, he can get better, too: on defense, against breaking pitches and by adding a little power. The Tigers found a gem.
I extolled Messick's merits above, and you don't need me to tell you that Tolle is a lot more than an epic mustache. But the depth of that AL leaderboard is worth noting. It's really impressive. Carter Jensen isn't likely to earn many votes, but he's already one of the best catchers in the game. Travis Bazzana was a stalwart for a playoff team in Cleveland and is just scratching the surface. And Chase DeLauter will be a fixture for the Guardians for years to come.
Doolittle's pick: McGonigle
National League
Finalists:
Carson Benge, New York Mets
Sal Stewart, Cincinnati Reds
JJ Wetherholt, St. Louis Cardinals
What to know: This is a hard-to-read race, and I'm not really confident in telling you how it will play out. I touted Wetherholt all season, but he struggled over the second half in both performance and durability. Meanwhile, Stewart turned a lot of heads because of his lofty homer and RBI counts, and by the start of September, his metrics were starting to line up with the attention. Then he slugged .280 in September. Benge came on strong at the end, but was it enough?
Ultimately, I'm casting a soft vote for Wetherholt, who finished second to McGonigle in fWAR among rookie hitters. FanGraphs tabbed Wetherholt as the game's fourth-most valuable defender this season (a combination of his fielding performance and positional value) and that carries the day for me. He was also a top-20 baserunner and, despite the second-half swoon at the plate, was still above average for the overall campaign.
Benge is not a bad fallback option, and Stewart did finish third in the majors with 112 RBIs. And hey, I'm not a snob about old-school stats. I love big RBI counts. You just can't rely on them for evaluation, at least not without digging for context. In the case of Stewart, his RBI% (21.4) was strong enough to land him 10th in RBIs above expectation. He was a legit run producer, but didn't do enough in other categories to win my support.
We'll soon see what the voters valued this season.
Doolittle's pick: Wetherholt
Manager of the Year
American League
Finalists:
Kevin Cash, Tampa Bay Rays
Chad Tracy, Boston Red Sox
Will Venable, Chicago White Sox
What to know: Postseason performance doesn't factor into the voting, though my own thoughts on this race did evolve based on my playoff coverage experiences. We'll get into the champion Brewers below, but I didn't spend a lot of time around the Rays this year, seeing them only a couple of times in person before the World Series. When I was able to focus on them more closely, it was clear that a lot of what I liked about Milwaukee's intangibles very much apply to the Rays as well. This is precisely the kind of thing that managers should get credit (or blame) for. Cash has proved for years now that he's one of baseball's very best skippers.
And yet ... Venable's even demeanor, positive attitude and ability to let a healthy clubhouse culture blossom in Chicago amazed me all season. The White Sox thought themselves contenders before they had any right to, and Venable was a big part of that. If these soft factors don't sway you, Venable also gets major props for guiding a taxed and thin pitching staff with a playoff-type paradigm starting weeks before the postseason actually arrived.
Doolittle's pick: Venable
National League
Finalists:
Don Mattingly, Philadelphia Phillies
Pat Murphy, Milwaukee Brewers
Walt Weiss, Atlanta Braves
What to know: I would be surprised if Murphy isn't a unanimous selection to win this award for a third straight season. This is not recency bias based on the Brewers' championship. This was evident weeks before the regular season ended. I just don't know how you can make a case for any other NL manager.
Murphy should become the first manager to win the award three straight years and, obviously, the first to do it in his first three full campaigns. He'd become the 10th manager to win the award at least three times in his career. Pretty impressive for a guy who didn't land his first non-interim big league managing gig until he was 13 days shy of his 65th birthday.
Doolittle's pick: Murphy
Other awards
Just a run-through of my picks for other notable honors, leaving aside the Mariano Rivera Award, since I voted in this category, and the Comeback Player of the Year, which is tough to attack analytically.
Executive of the Year: Chris Antonetti, Cleveland Guardians
There are some great candidates for this award, including Milwaukee's Matt Arnold, who took the honor the last two years when his team didn't win the title. It's also really hard to pick against the miraculous turnaround of the White Sox pulled off by Chris Getz, or the usual most-from-the-least wizardry of Tampa Bay's Erik Neander.
I'm going with Antonetti, who won the award in 2022. My organizational rating metric had Cleveland on top by season's end despite the massive improvement by Chicago, which finished second. The Guardians topped the charts in limiting injury impact and spending efficiency, and finished second, just ahead of the White Sox, in rookie WAR. The race was still close, but Antonetti gets it because of a successful trade deadline that was a big reason the Guardians lasted until the division series.
AL Hank Aaron Award: Yordan Alvarez, Houston Astros
NL Hank Aaron Award: Pete Crow-Armstrong, Chicago Cubs
Trevor Hoffman Award: Mason Miller, San Diego Padres
Edgar Martinez Award: Yordan Alvarez, Houston Astros
Gold Gloves: The winners have been announced and can be found here. My quibbles:
• AL shortstop: Taylor Walls had a plus-21 DRS (defensive runs saved, per Baseball Info Solutions) but a minus-2 FRV (fielding run value, per Statcast), which is the kind of disparity that makes public-facing defensive metrics so hard to trust. Walls is a defensive wizard who played every day for a World Series team even though he can't hit. That tells you how good his defense is. Nevertheless, Bobby Witt Jr. had the best defensive season at the position and is one of the game's most dynamic and impactful defensive players. He should have won.
• AL second base: The same kind of disparity regarding Walls applies to Cole Young (plus-16 DRS, minus-4 FRV). It's tough, because Young had good prospect grades as a defender, with suggestions that he can hold down the shortstop position. Still, I think Chase Meidroth or Michael Massey would have been better picks.
My All-MLB team:
1B: Pete Alonso, Baltimore Orioles
2B: Brice Turang, Milwaukee Brewers
SS: Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City Royals
3B: Junior Caminero, Tampa Bay Rays
C: Gabriel Moreno, Arizona Diamondbacks
OF: Randy Arozarena, Seattle Mariners
OF: Pete Crow-Armstrong, Chicago Cubs
OF: Fernando Tatis Jr., San Diego Padres
DH: Yordan Alvarez, Houston Astros
LHP: Chris Sale, Atlanta Braves
RHP: Jacob Misiorowski, Milwaukee Brewers
RP: Mason Miller, San Diego Padres