The baseball world has begun to turn its attention towards Hot Stove season, but there’s still some business to attend to regarding the 2023 season. Namely, it’s time to hand out some hardware.
On Monday night, MLB revealed the three finalists in each league for all four major individual awards: MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year and Manager of the Year. (The Gold Gloves were handed out on Sunday night, in case you missed it.) And now that we know who the top vote-getters were, we can officially make some predictions. Because while this year’s awards races seem a bit more clear-cut than usual, there’s still some intrigue — and plenty of room for debate.
2023 MLB awards predictions
AL MVP: Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Angels
Does this really require an explanation? Even with an injury-marred second half, especially on the mound, Ohtani’s numbers are flatly ridiculous: an MLB-best 184 OPS+, an AL-leading 44 homers and a 3.14 ERA over 132 innings pitched. He was the best hitter in baseball this year, and the fact that he was also a frontline starter for much of that time is just an added bonus — plus, despite the injuries, he still played in more games than his closest competition in Rangers shortstop Corey Seager.
NL MVP: Ronald Acuna Jr., Atlanta Braves
With a month or so to go, I had Dodgers outfielder/infielder/all-around star Mookie Betts in this spot. But Betts slashed just .244/.393/.326 in September, ceding the OPS/WAR race to Acuna Jr. — and with it, more than likely, the MVP trophy. Betts was a more valuable fielder than Acuna Jr., both in their shared position in right field and considering the utility that Betts’ ability to shift around the diamond had for the Dodgers. Acuna Jr.’s offensive season was just so overwhelming, from his 168 OPS+ to his 41 homers to his 73 steals — a combination that has never before been seen in MLB history — that the defensive gap needed to be immense to deny him the trophy. If Betts kept up his torrid August pace, he probably wins this, but the bar was that high.
AL Cy Young: Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees
Cole wasn’t as dominant this season as he was in his Astros days, or even in his first season in New York in 2021. But in a year in which seemingly every other contender slipped on a banana peel, the righty’s consistency carries the day: He led the AL in ERA and innings pitched while leading the Majors in WHIP, churning out quality starts despite a declining strikeout rate and fastball velocity (and despite the Yankees rotation going up in flames around him). Sonny Gray nearly matched him in run prevention but did it over fewer innings with fewer strikeouts, while Kevin Gausman paired the AL’s best K rate with too many crooked numbers. Given the relatively down year for pitching around the league, this carries the whiff of a lifetime achievement award; Cole has never won a Cy Young, finishing second twice and in the top five three other times. But Cole combined consistency and quality in a way that no one else did, and he’s a deserving winner.
NL Cy Young: Blake Snell, San Diego Padres
I don’t feel great about this; Spencer Strider was baseball’s most dominant pitcher, with a K/9 nearly two full strikeouts above anyone else in the NL, while Logan Webb averaged a full inning more per start than Snell did. At the end of the day, though, the name of the game is preventing runs, and the gap there is so large — Snell’s 2.25 ERA is a full run better than Webb’s, 1.5 runs better than Strider’s — that it’s awfully hard to deny him his second Cy Young. I’d have real reservations about handing Snell a massive contract as the lefty enters free agency this winter, as it seems unlikely he keeps suppressing hard contact well enough to overcome his command issues. This award is strictly for 2023, though, and in 2023, he was the best pitcher in the league, with three or fewer runs allowed in each of his last 22 starts.
AL Rookie of the Year: Gunnar Henderson, Baltimore Orioles
The Rookies of the Year, however, have no such consternation. For a while it looked like Masataka Yoshida was going to turn this into a compelling two-man race, but a second-half funk and a surge from Henderson turned this into a rout. The only player who was Henderson’s equal at the plate over anywhere near as many games was Red Sox first baseman Triston Casas — who posted a 129 OPS+ to Henderson’s 125 — but Henderson’s defensive value and baserunning more than make up for that small gap. Guys like Edouard Julien, Royce Lewis and Zack Gelof were great two-way players, but none of them came anywhere near Henderson’s 622 plate appearances.
NL Rookie of the Year: Corbin Carroll, Arizona Diamondbacks
The gap was even wider in the NL, where Carroll seemingly had this thing wrapped up by the end of June. The only qualified rookie who was more productive at the plate was Rockies outfielder Nolan Jones, who did it in some 221 fewer plate appearances while playing his home games at Coors Field and adding significantly less as a fielder and (especially) as a baserunner. Carroll was Arizona’s offensive engine from Opening Day, pacing all NL rookies in both homers and steals while playing through nagging injuries and leading his team to an unlikely Wild Card berth — and even more unlikely pennant run.
AL Manager of the Year: Bruce Bochy, Texas Rangers
I promise this isn’t post-World Series revisionism; I had Bochy on my imaginary ballot at the end of the regular season. All due respect to O’s manager Brandon Hyde, the gap between Baltimore and the Rangers wasn’t as wide as it may appear from their records — Texas actually had the better run differential on the year — and Bochy kept his ship afloat amid far more adversity. The Rangers rotation was a MASH unit for much of the year, losing Jacob deGrom after just six starts and going extended stretches without Nathan Eovaldi and Max Scherzer. (Not to mention Corey Seager’s extended IL stint.) Despite all that, Bochy guided Texas to its first playoff appearance since 2016, and he deserves this nod by the slimmest of margins.
NL Manager of the Year: Craig Counsell, Milwaukee Brewers
If this really were post-World Series revisionism, the easy answer would be to give it to Lovullo, who guided Arizona to a magical World Series run with a magic bullpen touch. And certainly, Lovullo deserves his spot as a finalist for shepherding a D-backs team no one expected much of all the way to their first postseason since 2017. Here’s the thing, though: The D-backs … simply weren’t all that good in the regular season, with an 84-78 record and -54 run differential. The Brewers, on the other hand, cruised to an NL Central title, their third in nine seasons under Counsell. While this award is just about 2023, Counsell has been arguably the best manager in the game for a while now — just ask the Cubs, who certainly paid him like it — and he deserves his first Manager of the Year award for yet another year in which Milwaukee overperformed expectations despite lots of turnover and injury.
