The 2023 MLB regular season is winding down and the postseason begins next week. The best-of-three Wild Card Series will be followed by the best-of-five Division Series, then the best-of-seven Championship Series and World Series. Here's where things stand in the postseason races.
MLB's major awards are regular-season awards and, as such, ballots must be submitted before the postseason begins. The awards winners are not announced until November, well after the World Series, but they are regular-season awards only. What happens in the playoffs has no bearing on the awards voting.
Because we don't feel like waiting around for the official announcements, our four CBS Sports MLB writers (R.J. Anderson, Mike Axisa, Dayn Perry, Matt Snyder) and two intrepid MLB editors (Kate Feldman and Stephen Pianovich) each cast a hypothetical ballot for the four major awards (MVP, Cy Young, Rookie and Manager of the Year) in each league. Our rules:
- Our individual ballots for each award include three names. In reality, the MVP ballot is 10 players deep and the Cy Young ballot is five players deep. Rookie and Manager of the Year each include three slots.
- The scoring system: Three points for a first place vote, two points for a second place vote, and one point for a third place vote. Most points wins. Nice and easy.
No, the regular season is not over yet, but it's close enough to being over that nothing that happens between now and the end of the season Sunday will change our votes, so we're casting our ballots now. Here now are our 2023 awards picks.
AL MVP: Shohei Ohtani, Angels
| 1st place | 2nd place | 3rd place | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Shohei Ohtani, Angels | 6 | 0 | 0 | 18 |
0 | 6 | 0 | 12 | |
0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | |
Marcus Semien, Rangers | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Not even a torn elbow ligament can stand in the way of Ohtani's second MVP in three years. Sure, Ohtani's season ended early -- he last pitched on Aug. 23 and last hit on Sept. 3 -- but even then his workload is unmatched. He took 599 plate appearances as a hitter and faced 531 batters as a pitcher, so that's 1,130 plate appearances he directly impacted. The next highest total is 850 by Logan Webb (all as a pitcher). And it's not like Ohtani racked up at-bats and batters faced with league average performance. He's leading the AL in homers and he was among the circuit's best pitchers. The injuries stink and so do the Angels, but this is a pretty easy call. Ohtani is the most impactful player of our lifetimes, and maybe ever.
Seager has emerged as the clear cut MVP runner-up in recent weeks even though he's missed time with injuries himself. He put an exclamation point on his season by going 11 for 27 (.407) with four doubles, three homers, four walks, and two strikeouts in seven games against the Blue Jays and Mariners earlier this month, all wins for the Rangers against teams they were battling for postseason position. Big-time performance by a big-time player in big-time games. Hitting .332/.393/.634 overall doesn't hurt either. The race for third place behind Ohtani and Seager is fairly wide open, as our voting shows.
NL MVP: Ronald Acuña Jr., Braves
| 1st place | 2nd place | 3rd place | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Ronald Acuña Jr., Braves | 6 | 0 | 0 | 18 |
0 | 6 | 0 | 12 | |
Freddie Freeman, Dodgers | 0 | 0 | 6 | 6 |
I suspect the real life voting will not be as lopsided as our voting. There is no wrong answer between Acuña and Betts, they are both very deserving, and when the race is this tight, I'm fine using "he went 40/70 and that rules" as a tiebreaker. Perhaps co-MVPs are warranted? It's happened before: Keith Hernandez and Willie Stargell were co-MVPs in 1979. That said, co-MVPs would be kind of lame. There are two very worth MVP candidates in the NL but one is a bit more deserving than the other. For us, it's Acuña.
The top of the MVP voting feels pretty well set. It'll be Acuña and Betts at 1-2 in either order, then it'll be Freeman and Matt Olson at 3-4 in either order. The real mystery is which non-Braves, non-Dodgers player gets the most MVP support? My money is on Corbin Carroll, though Austin Riley and Juan Soto should finish fairly high in the voting as well.
AL Cy Young: Gerrit Cole, Yankees
| 1st place | 2nd place | 3rd place | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Gerrit Cole, Yankees | 6 | 0 | 0 | 18 |
0 | 4 | 1 | 9 | |
Luis Castillo, Mariners | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | |
George Kirby, Mariners | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
Kevin Gausman, Blue Jays | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Cole is, pretty clearly, the best active pitcher without a Cy Young. That should change this season. The Yankees ace leads all pitchers in WAR (by a lot) and he leads the American League in both innings and ERA. Cole has a Cy Young case that satisfies the analytics crowd (WAR) and old school voters (ERA and innings) alike. There is not an especially deep group of Cy Young candidates behind Cole and, frankly, Ohtani might've been the runner-up had he stayed healthy.
NL Cy Young: Blake Snell, Padres
| 1st place | 2nd place | 3rd place | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Blake Snell, Padres | 6 | 0 | 0 | 18 |
Logan Webb, Giants | 0 | 2 | 3 | 7 |
0 | 2 | 0 | 4 | |
0 | 2 | 0 | 4 | |
Spencer Strider, Braves | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Does Snell lead baseball in walks? Yes. Does he pitch deep into games? No, not really. Despite that, Snell gets our collective Cy Young vote because he leads baseball in ERA by nearly half-a-run, and also because he's pitched to a 1.20 ERA with 186 strikeouts in 135 innings in his last 23 starts. Snell is on a run on par with 2015 Jake Arrieta and 2019 Jack Flaherty. There is no standout Cy Young candidate in the National League this season, like Cole in the American League or Sandy Alcantara last year. Snell has performed the best overall and it's enough to make up for the walks and relative lack of innings.
AL Rookie of the Year: Gunnar Henderson, Orioles
| 1st place | 2nd place | 3rd place | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Gunnar Henderson, Orioles | 6 | 0 | 0 | 18 |
0 | 2 | 2 | 6 | |
0 | 2 | 2 | 6 | |
Josh Jung, Rangers | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
Anthony Volpe, Yankees | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
Forget Rookie of the Year, Henderson has a case to finish top five in the MVP voting. He has a chance to hit 30 homers as a rookie and he's third in the league in WAR, and a catalyst for the team with the best record in the league. Henderson has an excellent chance to become the AL's first unanimous Rookie of the Year since Yordan Alvarez in 2019. The race for second place behind him is muddied. Four different players could finish second in the voting and I don't think any would be a surprise.
NL Rookie of the Year: Corbin Carroll, Diamondbacks
| 1st place | 2nd place | 3rd place | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Corbin Carroll, Diamondbacks | 6 | 0 | 0 | 18 |
Kodai Senga, Mets | 0 | 6 | 0 | 12 |
0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | |
James Outman, Dodgers | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
Spencer Steer, Reds | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Similar to Henderson, Carroll is going to get MVP votes, not just win Rookie of the Year. Earlier this month he became the first rookie ever to hit 25 homers and steal 50 bases, and his all-around excellence extends to the outfield, where he plays all three positions regularly. Senga, the likely runner-up, is an interesting case. The 30-year-old played 11 years in Japan before coming over to MLB, but the rules say he's a rookie, so he'll finish high in the Rookie of the Year voting. There's a chance, albeit a small one, Senga finishes higher in the Cy Young voting than the Rookie of the Year voting. That would be fascinating.
AL Manager of the Year: Brandon Hyde
| 1st place | 2nd place | 3rd place | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Brandon Hyde, Orioles | 4 | 1 | 1 | 15 |
Bruce Bochy, Rangers | 2 | 3 | 1 | 13 |
Kevin Cash, Rays | 0 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
Rocco Baldelli, Twins | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
Dusty Baker, Astros | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Our closest vote is for the most ambiguous award. Manager of the Year typically goes to the manager of the team that most exceeded expectations, and I think it's fair to say the O's exceeded expectations this year. They made a huge leap last year and improved by 31 wins, but even that only got them to only 83-79. On Thursday, they clinched the franchise's first 100-win season since 1980. The manager of the best team in the league is never a bad pick for Manager of the Year.
NL Manager of the Year: Craig Counsell, Brewers
| 1st place | 2nd place | 3rd place | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Craig Counsell, Brewers | 2 | 2 | 0 | 10 |
Skip Schumaker, Marlins | 1 | 2 | 1 | 8 |
Brian Snitker, Braves | 1 | 1 | 2 | 7 |
Torey Lovullo, Diamondbacks | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
David Bell, Reds | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Counsell has somehow never won Manager of the Year despite being widely regarded as one of the game's best managers. Maybe this will be his year? It is in our voting. Then again, four different managers received a first place vote on our made-up ballots, so this race is pretty wide open. I will say that, when a team dominates like the Braves have and finishes with the sport's best record by several games, their manager typically gets a ton of Manager of the Year support.
(Note: One of our writers abstained from our NL Manager of the Year voting because he has an actual NL Manager of the Year vote this season.)
