Sports
By Audrey Elwood, Campus Editor
Major League Baseball (MLB) on Thursday announced the MVPs of the American League (AL) and National League (NL), alongside the Cy Young Awards and the Rookie of the Year Awards.
Within the NL, the frontrunner for MVP was Shohei Ontani. The designated hitter from Japan is the hottest player in the league. He was voted in unanimously for the third time in a row and fourth time overall. He helped the Los Angeles Dodgers win the World Series this year, which granted him a World Series MVP as well. Ontani now has the second most MVPs of any player in the league, behind Barry Bonds’ seven titles.
In the AL, the title was heavily contested between catcher Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge.
The argument for Raleigh is that he is a catcher, a highly stressful position on the body. He was still able to win the Home Run Derby title while hitting 60 home runs in the regular season. However, Judge won by four first place votes and 20 points for the position.
Aaron Judge won his third MVP award after narrowly beating out Cal Raleigh.
This is Judge’s third time winning the title and he is the 13th player to reach this milestone.
“The award is for the most valuable player, what Cal Raleigh was doing offensively and defensively was more important than what Judge did for the Yankees” junior math and economics major Andrew Schmidt said.
In other awards, the Cy Young award, or the award for the best pitcher in the league, went to Tarik Skubal for the AL and Paul Skenes for the NL.
Skubal is a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers and he is the first repeat award winner since Pedro Martinez in 2000. He received 26 out of 30 first place votes for the award, totaling to 198 points, His nearest rival, Boston’s Garrett Crochet, only clocked 132 points.
The NL’s Cy Young recipient, Skenes, pitches for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Skenes was unanimously voted as the top pitcher in his division. He is the third Pirates player to win the title, the last being Doug Drabek in 1990. Skenes won Rookie of the Year last year and now he is the second player ever to win a Rookie of the Year and Cy Young back-to-back.
For Rookie of the Year, Nick Kurtz of the Oakland A’s won for the AL, and Atlanta Braves catcher Drake Baldwin for the NL.
Kurtz was voted in unanimously. Right behind him though, was fellow A’s teammate Jacob Wilson. He hit the most home runs and scored runs. Kurtz is the first rookie in history to have a four home run game.
Baldwin’s win is notable since he is a catcher. In the past 30+ years, only three catchers have won rookie of the year. He became the 10th Braves player to receive the honor, which boosted the Braves to tie with the Yankees for second place in most Rookie of the Year’s.
With the season at a close, fans will have to wait until April to see the next big moves from the award winners.
