My AL/NL MVP Rankings
- emeredith55
- Sep 15
- 5 min read
By Elias Meredith 9/15/25 SportzNation
The 2025 MVP race has been an exciting one, and it looks to be a photo finish as the regular season comes to an end. Both the National League and the American have candidates worthy of the league’s highest single season achievement. This is my list of who is the most deserving.
National League
Shohei Ohtani
Shohei Ohtani has been a phenom since his arrival to the MLB. While this year Ohtani has not had the work load that he has had in previous years due to him coming off his second Tommy John surgery of his career, he has still done well on the bump. In 2025, he is going to be at his lowest workload of his career, with him only throwing 36 innings this year.
At the dish, Ohtani has continued raking. He is having a great year, but a down year compared to his 50/50 season, it is a down year. Ohtani is on pace for his third straight season over an 1.000 ops. If Ohtani achieves that, he would be the first person since Barry Bonds in 1996-1998 to reach that feat. Ohtani is currently on a tear in his last six games, slashing .444/.643/1.000 with three home runs. Ohtani looks poised to capture his fourth MVP award in eight years.
Kyle Schwarber
Each time Kyle Schwarber popped a homer, he slowly climbed up the NL MVP ladder. The Phillies designated hitter has been setting off daily fireworks in South Philadelphia. In 2025, Schwarber set career-highs in home runs, RBI, OPS (barring a slump).
Schwarber is currently sitting at 51 home runs. He is the first Phillie since Ryan Howard to hit 50+ home runs in a season. Four of those 51 happened on the same night. On August 28, Schwarber hit four home runs in a single game, becoming the 21st player and fourth player in franchise history to accomplish that feat.
Schwarber is the best leadoff hitter in the game today, and he looks to continue to do damage at the top of the lineup through these playoffs, as the Phillies have an opportunity to reach 100 wins this season for the first time since 2011. As we head towards the end of the season, let’s see how many Schwarbombs we will see going into the postseason.
Paul Skenes
The MVP race usually favors position players, but Paul Skenes has made his own lane with his dominance this season. The most impressive thing is that he is only 23 years old, and he is already one of, if not the best pitchers in the game today.
Skenes has a most intimidating frame on the bump in the game. He has seven different pitches, and he is unpredictable because he can throw any pitch in any count for a strike. Paul Skenes is pretty much unhittable, and he has made his presence known ever since he stepped foot on a major league mound.
This season, Skenes is atop multiple statistical categories, including ERA (1st, 1.93), WHIP (3rd, 0.92), strikeouts (4th, 203), average against (T-4th, .193), and quality starts (T-6th, 19). He is also predicted to win the NL Cy Young award, and for good reason. Skenes is the future of this league, and with health and strength can continue to rack up hardware throughout his career.
American League
Aaron Judge
Aaron Judge is a generational talent that makes the game look easy. For starters, he is 6’7” 282 pounds of muscle, and the bat looks like a twig in his hand. That alone fears pitchers, but Judge has also found a way to strengthen his skill set at the dish.
Judge is the best hitter in the game hands down. Hits for power and contact, and this year he is leading the league in both batting average and OPS. On Friday, Judge passed Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio for fourth-all time and continues to set records. If Judge wins the MVP this year, he would join Yankee legends Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, and Mickey Mantle as the only players in franchise history to win three MVP awards in Yankee pinstripes.
Cal Raleigh
Raleigh was atop of MVP leaderboards until Aaron Judge came along with his yearly late season hot streak. Since then, he has been demoted to second place, but that doesn’t take away from the impressive season he has had so far. Raleigh is slashing .244/.369/.578 with a league-leading 54 home runs.
Raleigh always displayed power throughout his career, but this season he is breaking records and etching himself in MLB history. Yesterday, Raleigh drilled his 54th home run of the season, tying him with Mickey Mantle for the most home runs by a switch hitter in a single season. By the end of the season, there is a high chance Raleigh will overtake Mantle in that record and possibly catch Ken Griffey Jr. for most home runs in a single season by a Mariner (56).
Most importantly, Raleigh’s contribution has led to wins for the Mariners. Currently, the Mariners are on a nine game winning streak, and yesterday they surpassed the Houston Astros for the division lead. If the Mariners capture the division title, that would be their first since 2001. The Mariners need all of Big Dumper’s juice in order to cap off such a great season.
Tarik Skubal
On Friday, Tarik Skubal was removed from his start against the Miami Marlins after feeling tightness in his left side. Skubal was removed from the game after 3.1 innings pitched. Skubal got his first out of the third inning, and then called over the Tigers medical staff to tell them about his discomfort. After a few moments of discussion, the Tigers manager AJ Hinch pulled his starter.
The best thing that he could do was because now Skubal avoided an injury that could have possibly sidelined him until the postseason, but now he is on pace to make his next start this Tuesday against the Cleveland Guardians.
Skubal throws his changeup more than other of his pitches. That shows the command that the Tigers ace has of the strike zone. Skubal has 224 strikeouts and only 28 walks (league leader in both statistics), that is a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 8.
The Detroit Tigers have not seen dominance since Justin Verlander was in Motown. Skubal looks determined to leave a legacy in Detroit and do something that Verlander never did as a Tigers. Win a World Series title.
Thank you for reading!
Elias Meredith (@EAM_55)
Comments