1 snub for each BBWAA Award who deserves recognition

It is awards season in Major League Baseball, and on Monday night, we learned the three finalists for each of the five major awards handed out by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA): Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year, Relief Pitcher of the Year (a new addition in 2026), Cy Young and, of course, MVP.

All the finalists are deserving of course, but you can’t help but notice some names that might have fallen short.

• Every franchise's BBWAA award winners

When the award winners are announced next week, we’ll get the full totals and find out who received some of the down-ballot votes. But for now, we’d love to give a hat tip to a worthy player in each category who didn’t make the finalist cut.

Rookie of the Year: TJ Rumfield, Rockies
Yes, yes, I know: He’s a Rockie. Playing for the Rockies will always boost one’s offensive numbers at home, and that should always be taken into account. But Rumfield had some excellent numbers this year. Do you realize that he was the National League leader in OBP at .390? Getting on base is a pretty important thing in baseball, and it’s something that’s hard to do, whether you’re playing at elevation or not.

Rumfield is the first rookie to lead his league in OBP in 100 years. (And before you ask, he actually got on base at a higher clip on the road, .395, than at home.) I don’t know how you ignore a rookie who led his league in OBP.

AL finalists: Kevin McGonigle (DET), Parker Messick (CLE), Payton Tolle (BOS)
NL finalists: Carson Benge (NYM), Sal Stewart (CIN), JJ Wetherholt (STL)

Manager of the Year: Oliver Marmol, Cardinals
All right, I hear you: The Cardinals finished in fourth place and actually won one fewer game in 2026 than they did in 2025. But a statement like that strips out a lot of context. The Cardinals traded away Nolan Arenado, Sonny Gray, Brendan Donovan and Willson Contreras in the offseason and made it clear that the team was prioritizing the future more than the present.

And yet, the Cardinals were in the Wild Card chase all season; a 9-15 September, after they’d traded away Dustin May, JoJo Romero and Lars Nootbaar at the Deadline, was the only reason their record fell. The Cardinals also didn’t sacrifice any of their plans for the future, with 13 players making their MLB debuts, including three (JJ Wetherholt, Joshua Báez and Leo Bernal) who are going to be mainstays of the Cardinals’ lineup for a long time. Add that to huge steps forward from Jordan Walker and Alec Burleson, and it sure looks like Marmol has navigated this transition masterfully.

AL finalists: Kevin Cash (TB), Chad Tracy (BOS), Will Venable (CWS)
NL finalists: Don Mattingly (PHI), Pat Murphy (MIL), Walt Weiss (ATL)

Relief Pitcher of the Year: Josh Hader, Astros
It’s weird to think that anyone could forget about Josh Hader, no? This is a six-time All-Star who has been one of the most dominant and decorated closers of his era. Sure, Hader missed the first two months of the 2026 season, not making his debut until June 2. But did you see how great he was once he returned? In 45 appearances, he gave up exactly five earned runs. Five! The Astros weren’t necessarily the most electric team this year, so it was easy to miss just how good Hader was. He had a comically small 1.01 ERA and, while allotting for the fact that he only threw 44 2/3 innings, it is possible that 2026 was pound-for-pound the best season of his 10-year career.

AL finalists: Bryan Baker (TB), Cade Smith (CLE), Louis Varland (TOR)
NL finalists: Jhoan Duran (PHI), Trevor Megill (MIL), Mason Miller (SD)

Cy Young Award: Drew Rasmussen, Rays
During the regular season, the Rays are not necessarily the most high-profile team nationally, which is why a lot of casual fans might not have realized just how fantastic Rasmussen was until they saw him during the postseason. But don’t get it twisted: He was that good all year.

He was 16-5 with a 2.67 ERA in 30 starts, and for all the talk about how careful the Rays were with him during the regular season, typically giving him extra days off between starts, he still threw 172 innings, by far the most in his career. He led the AL in two categories that speak to how in control he was on the mound: WHIP (0.91) and K/BB ratio (5.44). He was an absolute ace hiding in plain sight all year.

AL finalists: Dylan Cease (TOR), Parker Messick (CLE), Cam Schlittler (NYY)
NL finalists: Jacob Misiorowski (MIL), Cristopher Sánchez (PHI), Chris Sale (ATL)

Most Valuable Player Award: Kevin McGonigle, Tigers
Yeah, yeah, he’s almost certainly going to win the AL Rookie of the Year Award, and he absolutely deserves it. But he has a much better case for being the third player to win both the Rookie of the Year Award and the MVP than he’s probably given credit for. (Only Ichiro Suzuki in 2001 and Fred Lynn in 1975 have pulled off that feat.) McGonigle was the AL leader in Baseball Reference’s version of WAR, at 7.1, and he also finished sixth in the AL in OBP (.376) while leading the league with 707 plate appearances. He played very solid defense at a premium position and is the clear face of a team that already has a load of young talent on it. He won’t win the MVP this year, obviously. But it sure looks like one will be in his future -- and probably soon.

AL finalists: Yordan Alvarez (HOU), Junior Caminero (TB), Bobby Witt Jr. (KC)
NL finalists: Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC), Shohei Ohtani (LAD), Brice Turang (MIL)