MLB Announces 2025 Cy Young Award Winners

Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal are 2025 Cy Young Awardees

The results come as little surprise after the two hurlers started against one another in the 2025 All-Star Game and continued their stellar pitching after the break. Barring injuries, the duo has plenty of All-Star appearances and Cy Young Awards in their future. For Skenes, it’s another feather in his Pirates cap after winning the NL Rookie of the Year Award last year. For Skubal, who took home the AL Cy Young Award last season, it never gets old.

Skenes Takes Home His First Cy Young Award

The right-hander Skenes, 23, becomes the first Cy Young Award winner as a starter not to post a winning record, finishing 10-10 for the 71-91 Pirates. The won-lost record has long been meaningless in evaluating a pitcher anyway. That’s more so in today’s pitch-count era, with starters rarely lasting past the sixth inning. In any event, Skenes put up other numbers that were hard for the voters to ignore. He led the majors with a 1.97 ERA while leading the NL with a 0.948 WHIP and holding opponents to a .199 batting average. Last year, those figures were 1.96, 0.947, and .198, respectively. It’s been suggested jokingly that the kid must be slipping.

Skenes also led Major League Baseball with a 217 ERA+, 2.36 FIP, 5.1 Pitcher WPA, and 0.5 home runs allowed per nine innings. He struck out 29.5 percent of batters faced, posting a healthy 5.14 strikeout-to-walk ratio. With anything resembling run support, an unfamiliar concept to the 2025 Pirates, he could have been a 20-game winner. He didn’t allow a run in 12 starts. There were six more starts where he allowed only one run. Two of those six runs were unearned. Those 18 starts produced eight no-decisions.

There’s One in Every Crowd

Somebody always has to be the party pooper. In this case, it was an unnamed teammate who spoke to Randy Miller of NJ.com for a story published the same day as the Cy Young Award announcement. According to the source, Skenes has “no confidence the Pirates are ever going to win” during his time with Pittsburgh, and he’s “hoping for a trade” before he becomes a free agent in 2030. His destination of choice is the Bronx, where the New York Yankees rule, so said the mole. Pirates general manager Ben Cherington was undaunted by the news.

“I Never Thought I Would Be Up Here”

When the TV broadcasters told us that Doug Drabek, the last Pirate to win the Cy Young Award, would be announcing the winner, a small grin flashed across Skenes’ face. He knew something was up. Surrounded by family and friends, including his famous girlfriend Livvy Dunne and personal catcher Henry Davis, Skenes smiled when he got the news, a stark contrast from last year’s stoic reaction to his Rookie of the Year Award. “I got recruited to college as a catcher, kept growing, started pitching, and got better on the mound,” Skenes told the broadcasters with classic understatement. “I never thought I would be up here, never thought I’d be in the major leagues, winning the Cy Young.”

Skenes took the award over finalists Cristopher Sánchez of the Philadelphia Phillies and World Series hero Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Sánchez took all 30 second-place votes.

Skubal a Repeat Cy Young Award Winner

Skubal, who turns 29 next week, was 13-6 for the Wild Card-winning Detroit Tigers. He led the AL with a 2.21 ERA, 2.45 FIP, and 187 ERA+. Surely, Tigers fans chafe when they hear that Skenes is the best pitcher in baseball, and with good reason. The left-handed Skubal led the majors with a 0.891 WHIP, 1.5 walks per nine innings, and a 7.30 strikeout-to-walk ratio. The latter mark was far superior to Skenes’ number. Skubal struck out 32.2 percent of batters faced, while opponents managed only a .200 batting average against him. He joins Denny McLain as the only Tigers with multiple Cy Young Awards.

Unlike Skenes, Skubal pitched under the pressures of a pennant race for a team that held a seemingly insurmountable first-place lead in the AL Central Division, only to collapse at the end and settle for a Wild Card berth. After July, Skubal posted a 2.48 ERA as Detroit failed to fend off a challenge from the hard-charging Cleveland Guardians. Those 10 games yielded just a 3-3 record for Skubal, who got a taste of what Skenes’ world is like.

However, as all great pitchers do, Skubal would take matters into his own hands in the Wild Card Series in Cleveland. In Game 1, he pitched 7 2/3 innings of three-hit, one-run ball in leading the Tigers to a tight 2-1 victory. The Tigers fed off that start to take the series in the maximum three games. Skubal pitched well in the Division Series against the Seattle Mariners, too, giving up three runs in 13 innings. Alas, Seattle won both of those games, sending the Tigers home for the winter.

Tarik Don’t Like It (Rock the Cashbox, Rock the Cashbox)

Skubal can be a free agent in 2027 and was reportedly “insulted” by the Tigers’ offer of an extension. It’s been reported on these pages that the sides are $250 million apart. Skubal is represented by Scott Boras, who’s not known for caving in during negotiations. Whether the sides continue to negotiate or the Tigers begin to test the trade market remains to be seen. Already, rumors are swirling about possible interest from the New York Mets.

“I’m Proud of Our Team”

Other finalists in the AL were Hunter Brown of the Houston Astros and Garrett Crochet of the Boston Red Sox. In a normal year, Crochet, with his 18-5 record and 2.59 ERA, would have been a shoo-in for the award. But with pitchers the caliber of Skenes and Skubal offering competition, 2025 was anything but a normal year.

One More to Go

The Most Valuable Player Awards will be announced on the MLB Network on Thursday at 7:00 PM Eastern. The finalists for the AL are Aaron Judge (Yankees), Cal Raleigh (Mariners), and José Ramírez (Guardians). The NL finalists are Shohei Ohtani (Dodgers), Kyle Schwarber (Phillies), and Juan Soto (Mets).