2024 MLB Award Predictions

AL MVP: Julio Rodríguez - OF, Mariners

Two years ago, when I predicted Rodríguez as my AL Rookie of the Year, I opened that by saying, “The J-Rod show is here!” Well, here we are. After two seasons, the J-Rod Show has not only met but exceeded every possible expectation. Rodríguez, who will be 23 for the entirety of the 2024 MLB season, has already won two Silver Sluggers, made two All-Star Teams, won a near-unanimous Rookie of the Year, and finished seventh and fourth in AL MVP voting. His 11.5 career bWAR is the 11th most by any player in their first two seasons since 1901. Rodríguez is the true definition of a five-tool player, using his combination of contact, power, speed, defense, and arm talent to affect the game at every level.

In 2023 Rodríguez became the 44th player and only the second Mariner (Alex Rodriguez) to join the 30-30 club after he clubbed 32 homers while swiping 37 bags. Other than Ronald Acuña Jr., who invented the 40-70 club last season en route to taking home NL MVP, and Bobby Witt Jr., another young phenom in his own right who has averaged 25 homers and 40 steals across his first two seasons, Rodríguez is the league’s most likely candidate for a 40-40 season, something Acuña became only the fifth player to do last season. Additionally, Rodríguez became the first player in MLB history to post 25 homers and 25 steals in each of his first two big league seasons last year.

The biggest factor holding Rodríguez back from true MVP-level seasons so far has been his slow starts. This was understandable in his rookie season when he slashed .206/.284/.260 in April before hitting his first career home run off eventual Cy Young winner, Sandy Alcántara, and proceeding to slash .297/.355/.550 the rest of the way. Last year, Rodríguez posted just a .785 OPS over the first half before a wicked-hot August in which he hit .429. That included setting an MLB record with 17 hits in a four-game stretch, helping him take home Player of the Month honors. He then crushed a season-best eight homers in September, bringing his season stats back up to the level he’s expected to be at. In his 109 career second-half games, Rodríguez has slashed .306/.362/.577 with 31 homers. If he can carry that line over a full season, plus his elite defense (97th percentile outs above average) and speed (96th percentile sprint speed), there’s no reason he can’t put up an 8+ WAR season while leading the Mariners to the playoffs.

Runner Up: Juan Soto - OF, Yankees

Dark Horse: Mike Trout - OF, Angels

AL Cy Young: Corbin Burnes - SP, Orioles

The 2021 NL Cy Young winner has been nothing short of one of baseball’s best and most consistent starting pitchers over the last four years. After a rough initial start to his career, which included the fourth-worst ERA of any pitcher who threw over 40 innings in 2019, Burnes made one adjustment that turned his career completely around. In 2019, his fastball, which he threw 52.5 percent of the time, was tied for the least valuable pitch in all of baseball with a -24 Statcast run value. Opponents were jumping all over the pitch, hitting .425 off of it with an .823 slugging percentage. He was still striking out plenty of batters (12.9 K/9) with his nasty slider that generated a 57 percent whiff rate, but he was giving up far too many homers (3.1 HR/9) thanks to a league-worst 38.6 percent home run to fly ball ratio. This is generally a pretty luck-based metric, which was why there was still hope for Burnes as his xFIP (which adjusts everyone’s home run to fly ball ratio to 10.5 percent) sat at just 3.37 while his SIERA sait at 3.55, both much more reasonable numbers.

Going into the 2020 season, Burnes scrapped the four-seam, cutting its usage down to 2.5 percent while adding a cutter and increasing his sinker usage from 3.7 to 33.1 percent. This change worked wonders for Burnes as his home run to fly ball ratio dropped to 4.7 percent and his ERA dropped to 2.11 over 59.2 innings in the pandemic-shortened season, helping him to a sixth-place finish in NL Cy Young voting.

Burnes carried that momentum into an incredible 2021 season that saw him take home the NL Cy Young while leading the league in ERA, FIP, K/9, and strikeout-to-walk ratio. He’s maintained that dominance over the last two years, throwing a career-high 202 innings while leading the NL with 243 strikeouts in 2022 before leading the NL with a 1.069 WHIP in 2023.

With free agency looming at the end of the season, Burnes was dealt to the Orioles in February in an attempt to capitalize on their now-open window of contention. In a contract year, the 29-year-old Burnes has a chance to set himself up to cash in big time in free agency next year, and what better way to do that than to take home his second Cy Young while leading one of the American League’s best young teams to the playoffs.

Runner Up: George Kirby - SP, Mariners

Dark Horse: Grayson Rodriguez - SP, Orioles

AL Rookie of the Year: Wyatt Langford - OF, Rangers

Langford is just about as pure of a hitter as there is. After dominating the SEC for the last three years, posting a ridiculous 1.217 OPS for the Florida Gators, the Rangers made him the fourth overall pick in last summer’s MLB Draft. Seemingly deadset on making the teams who passed on him regret their decision, Langford absolutely annihilated the minors after he debuted in late July. He posted an insane .360/.480/.677 slash line while climbing from rookie ball all the way to AAA. Overall last season, across 108 games in college and the minors, he posted a 1.232 OPS with 81 extra-base hits, 21 stolen bases, and a 1.18 walk-to-strikeout ratio (Alex Bregman led the majors with a 1.06 mark last season). He has incredible plate discipline, walking at an above-average rate in both college (15.08%) and the minors (18%), and he hasn’t had an OBP lower than .400 since he was a freshman at Florida, when he got a total of four plate appearances.

Even with the Rangers coming off of a World Series win with a stacked roster (including fellow ROY hopeful, Evan Carter), Langford was told before spring training that he would have every opportunity to start the year on the MLB roster. The 22-year-old took advantage of that opportunity to the fullest, and not only has he been the best rookie this spring, he’s arguably been the best player, period. While it’s a small sample size (60 plate appearances), his 1.188 OPS ranks second among all qualified hitters and his six spring homers are the third most for any player. Rangers manager, Bruce Bochy confirmed on Friday that Langdford would be on the opening day roster.

Langford won’t keep up his ridiculous spring numbers, which are largely aided by a .429 BABIP, but he’s proven time and time again that he can hit, no matter his competition. His combination of contact, power, and discipline at the plate, coupled with hitting in a Rangers lineup that features Corey Seager, Adolis García, and Marcus Semien, could easily lead to Langford putting up one of the best seasons a rookie hitter has given us in recent memory.

Runner Up: Evan Carter - OF, Rangers

Dark Horse: Kyle Manzardo - 1B, Guardians

NL MVP: Fernando Tatis Jr. - OF, Padres

Last year, I picked Ronald Acuña Jr. to win NL MVP because he was a young superstar coming off a down year after he missed significant time with injury. Fernando Tatis Jr. may not have missed time with injury, but it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to see his OPS drop from .965 over his first three years to .770 last year after he missed the entire 2022 season. Still only 25, Tatis now has a full year of baseball back under his belt and should return to the MVP-level numbers he posted across his first three seasons.

Even in a down year last season, Tatis still hit the ball extremely well compared to the typical major leaguer, his numbers just lagged slightly behind the standard he had set from 2019-21. His average exit velocity dropped from 93.2 to 91.7 mph, but that still placed him in the 89th percentile of hitters last season while his 49.3 percent hard-hit rate (balls hit 95+ mph) placed him in the 90th percentile.

There’s reason to believe that Tatis was simply a victim of bad luck where there was a significant discrepancy between his expected stats and the stats he actually put up. His .281 expected batting average, .508 expected slugging percentage, and .364 expected weighted on-base average (wOBA) were all much higher than the .257, .449, and .332 marks that he actually put up, respectively. If he had performed to the levels of his expected stats, it would have put his OPS more in the .850 range, rather than his .770 mark from last season.

One improvement that Tatis did show at the plate last year was a reduction in his strikeout rake. After striking out in 27.6 percent of his plate appearances from 2019-21, Tatis cut that down to 22.2 percent last season. This came with a reduction in his walks, as he walked only 8.4 percent of the time last year after reaching a career-best 11.4 percent walk rate in 2021. If he can pair 2021’s walk rate with 2023’s strikeout rate, along with his pure talent with a bat, it would easily make him one of baseball’s best hitters this season.

With the Padres investing 11 years and $280 million into Xander Bogaerts to play shortstop last season (who will now be sliding to second base to make room for Ha-Seong Kim), it forced Tatis to adapt as he was moved to the outfield. This move actually proved to be beneficial as it allowed Tatis’ incredible athleticism to turn into elite defense. Tatis was inconsistent defensively at shortstop, making some incredible plays but also making enough mistakes to generally net himself as a net-neutral defensively. In the outfield last season, Tatis was far from a net-neutral, as his 12 Statcast fielding run value placed him in the 95th percentile. His combination of range (94th percentile outs above average) and arm strength (99th percentile) made him one of the most valuable defenders in baseball last season, helping him take home not only a Gold Glove as the best defender at his position but also a Platinum Glove as the best defender in the entire National League.

If you combine Tatis’ 7.3 oWAR from 2021 and his 2.3 dWAR you get a 9.6 WAR season, which would’ve been 1.3 bWAR better than Mookie Betts’ 8.3 from last season, the best of any player not named Shohei Ohtani. That’s the level of potential Tatis has, as one of the best players in baseball on both offense and defense, which is why I think he’s due to bring home his first MVP this year.

Runner Up: Bryce Harper - 1B, Phillies

Dark Horse: Corbin Carroll - OF, Diamondbacks

NL Cy Young: Spencer Strider - SP, Braves

Since Strider’s rookie season in 2022, he’s done one thing better than any starting pitcher in baseball. Striking dudes out. Since 2022, Strider’s 37.4 percent strikeout rate isn’t just the best mark for any starter, it’s almost six percent better than second-place Blake Snell’s rate of 31.7 percent. He only relies on three pitches, a four-seam fastball that averages 97 mph while touching 100, a wicked slider that generates a whiff rate north of 50 percent, and a changeup that he uses to keep hitters off balance when they are sitting on his first two offerings.

Strider got touched up a bit last year, allowing both hits and home runs at a more frequent rate, which led to an ERA of 3.86, but every underlying metric shows that he was much better than his ERA might suggest. He posted an NL-best 2.85 FIP while leading the majors in both xFIP and SIERA, all much better indicators of future performance than ERA.

Something new for Strider this year will be a curveball that he’s toyed with in spring training. With the rest of his stuff being as dominant as it is, he doesn’t need the curveball to be a wipeout pitch, just to give himself another option to keep hitters off balance. So far, the results have been there as he’s struck out 29 batters in 18.2 scoreless spring innings.

In today’s era of starting pitcher usage, Strider might be the only possible candidate for a 300-strikeout season, something that hasn’t been accomplished since Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander both reached the mark for the 2019 Astros. Last year, Strider broke his own record that he set in 2022 by reaching 200 strikeouts in only 123.1 innings, the fastest ever. He ended up striking out 281 batters in 186.2 innings, and at his career rate, would only need to throw around 13 more innings to to reach 300 strikeouts.

If he can throw around 200 innings with an ERA near 3.00, there’s no way they can give the Cy Young to anyone other than Strider. He will challenge the 300-strikeout milestone, win more than enough games for older voters with a stacked Braves team (he led the majors with 20 wins last season), and all around be the best starting pitcher in all of baseball.

Runner Up: Zack Wheeler - SP, Phillies

Dark Horse: Eury Pérez - SP, Marlins

NL Rookie of the Year: Yoshinobu Yamamoto - SP, Dodgers

After signing with the Dodgers for a record-setting 12 years and $325 million this offseason, Yamamoto will be a rookie in 2024, but that doesn’t mean he will have much in common with the players he’ll be competing with for this award. At the age of 25, he’s arguably the best pitcher in NPB history, having won three straight Pacific League MVPs, Sawamura Awards (the NPB equivalent of the Cy Young), and pitching triple crowns from 2021-2023. Across seven NPB seasons, Yamamoto posted a ridiculous 1.82 ERA with a 0.935 WHIP and 4.48 strikeout-to-walk ratio that would have placed him 12th among major league starters in 2023.

Yamamoto got his first chance to show his talents off on a global stage in last year’s World Baseball Classic as he helped lead Japan to their first title since 2009. He made two appearances, including one start, during the tournament, allowing two runs on four hits across 7.1 innings with 12 strikeouts to only two walks.

Yamamoto relies on a four-pitch mix of a fastball, splitter, curveball, and cutter, changing up speed and location to keep hitters guessing. It all starts with his fastball which sits around 95 mph but can reach as high as 99 when he really needs to dial it up. His main secondaries are a looping, 77 mph curveball that can generate whiffs from either batter’s box and a 90 mph splitter that may already be the best in the world. Yamamoto’s splitter is his go-to strikeout pitch against either side of the plate, with righties hitting just .106 against the pitch and lefties hitting .178 off of it.

I know that Yamamoto got lit up by the Padres in his big league debut during MLB’s Seoul Series in South Korea that opened the 2024 MLB season, but you’ve got to trust me. This guy will be great. It will take him some time to adjust to a new league, just like how Kodai Senga had a 4.15 ERA across his first five starts after coming over from Japan last year before dropping that number to 2.76 over the rest of the season. Once he makes the necessary adjustments, his combination of raw stuff and pure pitching talent should help him run away with this award while making him a contender for the NL Cy Young as well.

Runner Up: Shota Imanaga - SP, Cubs

Dark Horse: James Wood - OF, Nationals