Honorable Mentions1 of 9
Dylan Cease, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays—Missed a few starts with a hamstring strain and doesn’t quite have enough innings pitched to qualify for an ERA title. But he’s still leading the AL with 128 strikeouts, whiffing better than 36 percent of batters faced.
Bryce Harper, 1B, Philadelphia Phillies—An afterthought in the NL MVP race a month ago, Harper has rocketed into the conversation with a scorching hot run through June. He has five home runs and a .432/.469/.864 triple-slash across his last 10 games.
Davis Martin, RHP, Chicago White Sox—Has had a couple of stinkers recently, including getting lit up for nine earned runs at Yankee Stadium. He still has a 3.00 ERA for the year, though, with nine starts of at least six innings and either zero or one runs allowed.
Parker Messick, LHP, Cleveland Guardians—Would be the front-runner for AL Rookie of the Year in a world where Kevin McGonigle doesn’t exist. Doesn’t have a blistering fastball, but his six-pitch arsenal keeps hitters perpetually guessing.
Max Muncy, 3B, Los Angeles Dodgers—All other Dodgers pale in comparison to Shohei Ohtani, but Muncy is more than carrying his weight with 17 home runs and a slugging percentage north of .500. Quite the feat for a third baseman in his age-35 season.
Drew Rasmussen, RHP, Tampa Bay Rays—Is this the year we finally come to appreciate the run this pitcher has been on for a while now? This is his sixth consecutive season with a sub-3.00 ERA, and his 2.71 ERA since the beginning of 2021 ranks second only to Ohtani among pitchers with at least 500 innings of work. And he’s better than ever this year with an AL-best 0.87 WHIP.
Chris Sale, LHP, Atlanta Braves—This would need to be a top 30 in order to find room for all the serious threats to win the NL Cy Young award, but Sale is firmly in that second tier after the dynamic duo of Jacob Misiorowski and Cristopher Sánchez. Atlanta’s ace has a 2.10 ERA, which is even better than the 2.38 mark that won him a Cy Young two years ago.
Paul Skenes, RHP, Pittsburgh Pirates—Don’t let the losing record (6-7) and 3.10 ERA fool you. Skenes has been, for the most part, every bit as dominant as he was across his first two seasons in the majors. He has just had some brutal luck with runners in scoring position, allowing a .345 batting average against in those situations compared to a .180 mark between 2024-25.
Juan Soto, OF, New York Mets—Mets? Terrible. Soto? Great. His .971 OPS ranks best among NL players. Kind of absurd that he only has 39 RBI to show for it, though.
Miguel Vargas, 3B, Chicago White Sox—Munetaka Murakami got all of the love through the first two months, but Vargas has been Chicago’s most valuable player, on pace for close to 40 home runs and 20 stolen bases. Getting him in exchange for Michael Kopech, Erick Fedde and Tommy Pham two deadlines ago has blossomed into quite the win.