The Cy Young awards came out yesterday and the two favorites of the media Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal won the award for their respective leagues.
Other awards are being presented throughout this week as the GM meetings continue in Vegas.
Other than silver slugger awards for Juan Soto and Pete Alonso, there are no Mets contending for awards. But next season will be different. The Mets have a chip on their shoulder, having suffered an epic slow motion meltdown over the last three months of the regular season.
Who will rise to the occasion in 2026? Will the team that underperformed to expectations last year recover by overperforming to expectations in the new year? If they do, you can expect plenty of candidates for the MLB awards in 2026.
Who are your favorites? Since the Mets are poised to leverage their youth movement, let's start with the rookie of the year.
According to MLB.com, the criteria to be a rookie is as follows:
A player shall be considered a rookie unless he has exceeded any of the following thresholds in a previous season (or seasons):
• 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched in the Major Leagues.
• 45 total days on an active Major League roster during the Championship Season (excluding time on the Injured List)
Nolan McLean spent 44 days on the Mets' MLB roster. He pitched 48 innings. He is in the running for next year's rookie of the year award. So is Jonah Tong, so is Brandon Sproat, and so are the list of Mets' prospects that haven't been on the roster yet but are hoping to begin 2026 on it - like Carson Benge, Jett Williams, or Nick Morabito.
The Cy Young is a little harder to predict, as there are many great pitchers in the game today but it takes a confluence of talent, luck, health, and opportunity to be in the running for this prestigious award. We don't really know how the Mets' pitching staff will be populated with the whole free agent signing period in front of us and plenty of arms healing over the winter.
Juan Soto will not win an MVP award this year, but he should always be considered among the top candidates in any season. In 2025 he started the year with a couple of subpar months, but finished with a flourish that will land him somewhere between 3rd and 5th in this year's voting. A strong season next year without a couple of lean months coupled with a better team performance can land him on top.
The new focus on run prevention will certainly lead to defensive improvements on the club, but don't expect many gold glove candidates in 2026. Francisco Lindor has the tools, but has failed to make the finalists in National League voting. David Peterson was a finalist this year as a pitcher, but has not been in the running in any prior season so 2025 seems like more of an outlier. McLean is more likely to be the top GG candidate on the Mets pitching staff given his athleticism and experience as two-way player coming out of the draft.
Who are your favorites to rise to the top in 2026?
7 comments:
In normal times, Soto would be an early favorite for MVP, but that was B.O. (before Otani)
I truly believe that McLean will be a top 3 in ROY plus a helium alert for CYA
Also, depending if he starts in Queens, Benge could also be a ROY candidate
I’ve always thought that there should be two ROY awards in each league, one for pitchers and one for position players. Comparing the two is apples to oranges, and while pitchers are obviously eligible for the MVP award, they have their own MVP with the Cy Young. Not sure why baseball wouldn’t add a pitchers’ ROY. It feels like a. O-brainer. The cost is minimal and it’s a chance to better highlight and promote the young talent coming into the league.
This is a very smart idea
Have to put my $$$ on McLean at this point.
Watch how you bet on baseball
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