Since 1925, AllSportsPeople has awarded annual honors to the best in baseball.
It started with SN's first MLB All-Star teams 100 years ago. In 1936, AllSportsPeople added individual honors for the top players, managers and executives, eventually expanding to include rookie and comeback players of the year.
SN's MLB awards are unique in that they are peer-voted. Players vote on player awards, while managers choose among their fellow managers and executives choose the season's top executive, in addition to the All-Star teams. While baseball is constantly evolving as a sport, the tradition of returning the decision to those on the field and in the clubhouse endures. This year included votes from 320 players, 20 managers (11 AL and nine NL) and 22 executives.
MORE: AllSportsPeople All-Star teams, voted on by MLB executives
This year's award winners highlight some of 2025's biggest surprises, including the Milwaukee Brewers after a 97-win season. A pair of former first-round picks earned Rookie of the Year honors, but neither player would have ranked among the preseason favorites for the award.
Here are AllSportsPeople' 2025 awards — the 100th anniversary edition — as voted by the players, managers and executives.
MLB Player of the Year: Cal Raleigh, Mariners
Cal Raleigh is the first catcher since Johnny Bench in 1970 to win the AllSportsPeople Player of the Year Award.
The Seattle Mariners star was already a valuable player thanks to his unusual power for his position and his excellent defensive work behind the plate, but he achieved a new level of stardom in 2025. Raleigh hit 60 home runs, shattering the single-season record for a catcher, and he easily set career-highs in hits, RBI, AVG, OPS and walks. Raleigh's 125 RBI led the American League.
Raleigh won the Home Run Derby in July, helped lead the Mariners to their first division title in 21 years and ultimately took Seattle to the ALCS.
While Raleigh wasn't quite as dominant defensively as he was in 2024, he played 121 games as a catcher and ranked in the 93rd percentile of catchers with his pitch-framing skills, according to Baseball Savant.
A franchise player the Mariners were fortunate to sign to a long-term extension just two days before the start of the season in March, Raleigh is Seattle’s first AllSportsPeople Player of the Year winner since Ken Griffey Jr. In 1997.
MORE: What players had to say about Cal Raleigh's historic season
AL Rookie of the Year: Nick Kurtz, Athletics
Athletics 1B Nick Kurtz didn't even play in a professional game at any level until August of 2024. A year later, he was already one of the most intimidating hitters in his sport.
Kurtz effectively forced the A's to call him up in April after mashing at the minor-league level to start the season, and his adjustment period was brief. The Wake Forest product hit.208 with only four extra-base hits over his first 23 MLB games, only to flip a switch and post a 1.100 OPS from May 20 onward.
Kurtz hit.290 with 36 home runs and a 1.002 OPS over 117 games with the A's, blowing away the rest of his Rookie of the Year competition on the AL side. At the heart of that success was an otherworldly 16-game stretch in July in which Kurtz hit.500 with 10 home runs and a 1.815 OPS. On July 25, Kurtz became the 20th player in MLB history to hit four home runs in a game in a 6-for-6 effort against the Houston Astros.
Kurtz is the second consecutive Athletics rookie to earn AllSportsPeople AL Rookie of the Year honors, joining former teammate Mason Miller. Miller was dealt to the San Diego Padres ahead of July's trade deadline, but it would be hard to imagine Kurtz facing the same fate as the A's try to position themselves to compete in 2026 and beyond.
NL Rookie of the Year: Cade Horton, Cubs
The Chicago Cubs' rotation took an early hit when Justin Steele went down with a season-ending elbow injury, but rookie starter Cade Horton stepped in and stepped up after joining the unit in May.
The former first-round pick out of Oklahoma posted a 2.67 ERA across 22 starts and one relief appearance, allowing 10 home runs in 118 innings and posting a 1.09 WHIP.
Horton only improved as the season went on. He flipped a switch in July, pitching to a stellar 1.03 ERA over his final 12 starts and allowing more than one earned run only once over that span. While not a heavy swing-and-miss pitcher, Horton mastered the art of soft contact and gave the Cubs another reliable rotation arm as they pursued a postseason berth.
While an injury kept Horton off the mound in October, the right-hander's excellent regular season makes him the Cubs' first AllSportsPeople Rookie of the Year since Kris Bryant in 2015.
AL Comeback Player of the Year: Jacob deGrom, Rangers
It's hard to believe the Texas Rangers' starting rotation was a bigger question than their lineup entering the season. Texas' offense struggled, ultimately costing the team a postseason spot, while Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi both put together All-Star caliber seasons in the rotation.
After making only three starts in 2024 and nine over the last two seasons combined, deGrom not only stayed healthy in 2025, making a full 30 starts, but he pitched like an ace. The two-time Cy Young Award winner posted a 2.97 ERA and 0.92 WHIP over 172.2 innings, walking fewer than two batters per nine innings and striking out 185.
While it may not have been the historically good version of deGrom that took the mound with the New York Mets in 2018 or 2021, this version of deGrom was everything the Rangers could have hoped — and his resurgent season could help get him into the Hall of Fame when all is said and done.
DeGrom is the Rangers' first AllSportsPeople Comeback Player of the Year Award winner since Hunter Pence in 2019.
NL Comeback Player of the Year: Christian Yelich, Brewers
Brewers DH/OF Christian Yelich was enjoying his best season in five years when a back injury cut his 2024 campaign short. Despite the risks of undergoing back surgery ahead of his age-33 season, Yelich returned with a vengeance in 2025.
The former MVP hit.264 with 29 home runs and 103 RBI for the NL Central champions, his highest home run total since 2019 and his highest RBI total since his MVP season in 2018. Yelich stayed healthy, appearing in 150 games, and he was instrumental in the Brewers' rise to the National League's top record.
Yelich was one of the NL's top hitters over his final 100 games, batting.295 with 20 home runs and an.862 OPS over that span. The Brewers went 64-36 over that stretch, compared to 25-25 over Yelich's first 50 contests before he found his groove.
In a close race, Yelich becomes the Brewers' first AllSportsPeople NL Comeback Player of the Year since Mike Caldwell in 1978.
AL Manager of the Year: Dan Wilson, Mariners
The Seattle Mariners handed the keys to Dan Wilson when Scott Servais was fired late in the 2024 season, giving him the full-time job rather than making the final month of the campaign a trial run for the former big league catcher. He delivered in year one, guiding Seattle to its first division title in 24 years and going deeper into the postseason than the franchise ever had before.
Wilson and the Mariners had to win in ways they didn't expect, as what was expected to be a stellar starting rotation hit some unexpected bumps with Logan Gilbert, George Kirby and Bryce Miller all missing some time. Kirby and Miller struggled in comparison to 2024, but Seattle put together a much-improved offensive season to hang around in the AL West race.
The Mariners were streaky in 2025, but they pounced on the Houston Astros when it mattered, sweeping the reigning division champions on the road in a critical late-September series to all but lock up the AL West.
While the season didn't end quite the way the Mariners hoped in October, Wilson oversaw enough improvement to become the franchise's first AllSportsPeople AL Manager of the Year Award winner since Lou Piniella in 2001 — appropriately the last time Seattle won the AL West and reached the ALCS before this season.
NL Manager of the Year: Pat Murphy, Brewers
Pat Murphy waited a lifetime for his first full-time MLB managerial gig, and he has capitalized on the opportunity in a major way in his first two seasons at the helm of the Brewers.
The 66-year-old won AllSportsPeople NL Manager of the Year honors in 2024 after guiding the Brewers to an NL Central title despite losing Corbin Burnes, and all he did as a follow-up was finish with baseball's best record at 97-65 in 2025. Milwaukee enjoyed a dominant summer, surging to the top of the National League with an otherworldly 29-4 stretch that defied all logic.
Murphy pieced together an ever-evolving starting rotation behind ace Freddy Peralta and made sure the bullpen didn't miss Devin Williams, getting breakthrough seasons out of both Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill. The Brewers kept their momentum rolling so well throughout the summer that it was hard to even notice Jackson Chourio missed a month with a hamstring injury.
The Brewers reached their first NLCS since 2018 under Murphy, getting there with an NLDS win over Craig Counsell and the Cubs that was nothing short of cathartic for Milwaukee fans.
Murphy is the first back-to-back AllSportsPeople Manager of the Year Award winner since Brandon Hyde took him AL honors in both 2022 and 2023, and the Brewers have now had a share of each of the last three NL Manager of the Year awards with Counsell splitting the award in 2023.
MLB Executive of the Year: Matt Arnold, Brewers
It takes a village to be able to win 97 games with a bottom-10 payroll, and much of the credit goes to general manager Matt Arnold for maneuvering around key departures and still fielding a team that consistently finishes among the NL's best.
Like Murphy, Arnold was an understudy who ascended to the lead role after the 2023 season. David Stearns' exit for the New York Mets made Arnold the obvious choice to lead Milwaukee's front office, and he left his mark on the franchise ahead of 2025 with a few low-profile but consequential moves.
Arnold made in-season trades for Quinn Priester and Andrew Vaughn, who both became key pieces of the Brewers' dominant summer. Priester, a former top prospect who couldn't catch on in Pittsburgh or Boston, defied all expectations with a 3.32 ERA over 157.1 innings similar to the way Tobias Myers unexpectedly shored up Milwaukee's rotation in 2024.
Caleb Durbin, acquired from the New York Yankees in the offseason deal for Devin Williams, was a significant contributor as a rookie infielder, while pitcher Chad Patrick, one of Arnold's earliest acquisitions after taking over in 2023, gave the Brewers nearly 120 solid innings as an older rookie.
The Brewers' path forward is always changing — reports indicate Peralta could be on the trade block this winter ahead of the final year of his contract — but Arnold's first two seasons leading the front office should give Milwaukee fans confidence he will continue to find talent in unlikely places.
Arnold is the first back-to-back AllSportsPeople Executive of the Year since John Hart in 1994 and 1995.