Dodgers Ohtani and Yankees Judge recipients of MLB MVP awards
Baseball’s MVPs have been decided. Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani wins the National League award, while Yankees’ Aaron Judge takes home the title again for the American League.
Trent Grisham will run it back atop the New York Yankees‘ lineup with Aaron Judge. Shota Imanaga is returning to the Chicago Cubs rotation. Brandon Woodruff is once again a Milwaukee Brewer, and Gleyber Torres will spend a second season with the Detroit Tigers.
They’re all part of a slate of great but not transformative major leaguers wising up to the fact it’s better to accept a qualifying offer than fight the currents of having draft-pick compensation tied to their free agency all winter.
Grisham, Imanaga, Woodruff and Torres are the players who accepted $22.025 million tenders from their clubs, automatically placing them on the 2026 roster – and ensuring they can hit the free agent market again next winter, without teams having to forfeit a top draft pick for their services.
Thirteen free agents received the qualifying offer, and for the very top end of the market, it was a no-brainer to reject the one-year deal – think Kyle Tucker, Bo Bichette, Framber Valdez and other elite free agents who will likely pull in nine-figure, multiyear deals.
But players less likely to be deemed franchise cornerstones opted to go back to their old clubs – perhaps wisened by the struggles of those who came before them.
Most notably, All-Stars Alex Bregman and Pete Alonso found the free agent waters very challenging last winter, both not joining their clubs until February’s opening of spring training camp. They’d rejected the qualifying offer and hoped for multiyear security – but instead signed short-term deals with opt-outs, and are back on the market this winter, unencumbered by draft pick compensation.
The players who accepted the QO this season all had good reason to do so.
For Grisham, it was the fact his platform year was something of an outlier – his 34 home runs were double his previous career high and, at 29, other teams might have given pause to bet on him doing it once again. So, he will return to the Yankees, where he was a 3.5-WAR player in center field and setting up AL MVP Judge atop the lineup.
Imanaga hit the wall badly in his first two seasons with the Cubs, posting first-half ERAs of 2.65 – and earning an All-Star nod in 2024 – but 4.70 in the second half. The Cubs declined a three-year, $57 million option on Imanaga and then slapped him with the qualifying offer.
Woodruff returned from shoulder surgery this season but still made just 12 starts and wasn’t healthy at season’s end, not exactly a sterling resume to take to the market. In a sense, he can look at next year’s $22 million payday as a prelude to a greater guarantee down the road.
Torres, who did not receive a QO from the Yankees after 2025, was a first-half All-Star in Detroit but also faded down the stretch, finishing with a .256 average, 16 home runs and a .745 OPS that’s just a tick above league average. He turns 29 next month.
In addition to Tucker, Bichette and Valdez, six other players rejected the qualifying offer – right-handed starters Dylan Cease, Michael King and Zac Gallen, closer Edwin Diaz, DH Kyle Schwarber and lefty starter Ranger Suarez.