The 2025 MLB season is officially over, and now, instead of the regular season, it’s award season. Gold Gloves and Silver Sluggers have been handed out, and the voting pool has selected the rookies and managers
of the year. But there’s still plenty to come, and the Yankees continue to be involved.
The Cy Young Award is the most prestigious honor for an MLB pitcher to win. Yankees left-hander Max Fried was involved in conversations for it from the inception of the regular season, though an uneven middle month or two seemingly took him out of the running for the top spot. Now, with voting finalized, the winner was indeed the favorite: Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers. He was selected for the second consecutive season and is the first back-to-back winner in the American League since Pedro Martinez in 1999-2000. Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes was the unanimous winner in the National League.
BBWAA writers were allotted five slots on their ballots. Here’s the points breakdown for each AL pitcher who received votes:
Just outside the top three behind Skubal, Garrett Crochet, and Hunter Brown, Fried finished fourth, thanks to six third-place votes. Another Yankees southpaw, Carlos Rodón, finished sixth in voting. Both had been named to the AL All-Star team in July.
Fried finished the season with strong numbers, including a 2.86 ERA, 3.07 FIP, 3.41 xFIP and a 4.8 fWAR in 195.1 innings pitched. The 31-year-old won 19 games on the season, leading all MLB starters in the traditional stat. Fried’s 2.86 ERA was also good for eighth in MLB (as was his fWAR), with Skubal leading the AL at a 2.21 mark. This is his third time finishing in the top five in Cy Young voting, as he twice did so during his days in Atlanta. He was fifth in 2020 and then runner-up to unanimous winner Sandy Alcantara of the Marlins in 2022.
As for Rodón, this is his third time earning Cy votes as well, though his balloting has been more distant, finishing fifth and sixth for the 2021 White Sox and 2022 Giants, respectively. The ALDS unfortunately didn’t reflect it, but for much of the 2025 season, he formed a strong one-two punch with Fried atop the New York rotation. Rodón was second to Fried with 18 wins, proved durable for the second season in a row by tying for the AL lead in starts (33) while notching a 3.09 ERA and pacing the Junior Circuit with a 6.1 H/9. It was hard to make good contact against the 32-year-old, who was fourth in the AL with 203 strikeouts, the second 200-K season of his career.
Despite not winning the award, Fried performed about as well as anyone could have asked given the circumstances — coming into a new environment, team, and clubhouse alongside the fact that the Yankees’ true ace, Gerrit Cole (the 2023 AL Cy Young), would be out for the entire season. A fourth-place showing is nothing to scoff at, and the same can be said for a sixth-place finish by Rodón. Congratulations to the two of them!
