Well, I’m expecting a bit of a procession here. I may have already started work on the announcement article, to be honest. 🙂 But, hey, I think it’s fair to say that this year worked better on an individual level for the team, than as a collective. We got to enjoy some stellar personal performances, both in a single game and over the course of the season. Among the former, were Eugenio Suarez’s four home-run game, and Brandon Pfaadt delivering one of the best starts by a Diamondback pitcher over the past
decade. Over the broader picture we also enjoyed Carroll leading the majors in triples, Suarez’s run at fifty homers and Marte’s back-to-back Silver Slugger campaign.
If the nomination thread is any guide, however, there can only be one winner, and it might be close to unanimous. Still, let’s chew over the position players who led the 2025 D-backs in average WAR, as well as the hurlers who won our earlier awards as Pitcher and Rookie of the Year.
Corbin Carroll
Carroll followed up his spectacularly strong second half of last year with another excellent performance. Only three position players for Arizona have put up better than five bWAR at age 24 or younger: Carroll is two of them, in 2023 and 2025. He’s now surpassed Justin Upton (the third such) for most bWAR through age 24, even though he has played close to 250 fewer games than J-Up. He set career bests in doubles, triples, home-runs and RBI, becoming the first player in franchise history to have a 30/30 HR/SB season, and only the 14th in baseball history of his age (weirdly, half of all them have come in the last seven seasons).
Ketel Marte
Remember after the 2022 season, when people wondered if Marte was broken? Over the three seasons since, less than a handful of players have put up more bWAR in the National League than Ketel. Despite missing more games than any season since 2021, he still won the Silver Slugger. His 28 home-runs was the most be a second baseman in the NL, and it wasn’t close: nobody else reached even twenty. He posted a career-best K:BB ratio of 83:64, and his 145 OPS+ was the highest in the majors at the position, twenty points more than any other everyday second baseman. He became a three-time All-Star and also got MVP votes for the third time.
Ryne Nelson
One of our pitchers provided a pleasant surprise, in terms of taking a huge step forward in performance. Nelson couldn’t crack the Opening Day rotation, but moved full-time into there after we lost Burnes for the season. An ugly first start didn’t breed confidence, but over nineteen subsequent appearances, Nelson’s level of pitching was one Burnes would have been hard-pushed to match. Nelson was charged with just one loss – and in that, he allowed one earned run over 5.1 innings – while posting a 2.89 ERA. It included great performances like six innings of one-hit ball against the Pirates, and he deserved better than nine no-decisions over his final ten appearances.
Geraldo Perdomo
Geraldo Perdomo, 2021-2024: 401 G, 1,420 PA, 14 HR, 6.5 bWAR
Geraldo Perdomo, 2025: 161 G, 720 PA, 20 HR, 7.0 bWAR
Have we ever seen a breakout season like this? In fact, Arizona fans have rarely seen a season like this: the only 7+ bWAR campaigns by position players were Paul Goldschmidt in 2015, and Luis Gonzalez in 2001. Perdomo is also the first Arizona hitter to hit 20 home-runs and have more walks than strikeouts, than Gonzalez in 2003. Oh, yeah: and Geraldo stole 27 bases in 33 attempts. Can someone explain to me why he was not selected as an All-Star?
Andrew Saalfrank
As Michael said in the nominations thread, “This should be a runaway because the other rookies put up typical rookie numbers.” Certainly, Saalfrank returned to the form he showed when he first came up, not allowed an earned run until his 12th appearance. Across 28 games, he had a 1.24 ERA, though his FIP was more than two runs higher. The elephant in the room, however, is the reason why he played only 28 games. Saalfrank was suspended for a year after having been found to be gambling on baseball (not on D-backs games). That kept him off the roster until early June. Should that be a factor in our decision? I leave that thorny question up to the voters.
Here’s the poll, or https://poll.fm/16513329. Feel free to explain your choice in the comments, especially if it’s not… Oh, y’know.
