Kenny Dillingham has turned Arizona State into a winning program overnight
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Paolo Uggetti, ESPN
WHEN KENNY DILLINGHAM speaks, it is hard not to listen. The sound of his voice, however, is only half the portrait. Watching him speak paints a far more complete picture.
Dillingham’s eyes seem to widen and ignite as if they have been flickered on by a match. Sometimes, his hands join the party while his eyebrows shoot up to the sky and his head bobs up and down, all of it harmonizing with the cadence of his words, which often feel like they are being spoken a mile a minute.
This season, Dillingham’s postgame interviews after wins have become a fascination and a small, but significant manifestation of his character. Whether baptized by a vat of celebratory Gatorade or simply worn out by being planted for three-plus hours under the Arizona sun, Dillingham often appears drenched and out of breath, as if he has gone through an entire game himself or run through a mental marathon. But even so, that only taps into a portion of the energy he possesses. Whatever remains, he seems to channel into his public speaking.
Even through a screen, Dillingham comes alive. His coaching staff and players gravitate toward the combination of youth and bravado that makes him unique. And for those who decide to use the word “quirky” to describe him, they quickly follow it up with a caveat.
“He marches to the beat of his own drum,” ASU assistant head coach and special teams coordinator Charles Ragle said. “But he knows who he is and I think that that combination is what makes him special.”
Once in a press conference room, Dillingham might be slightly more subdued, but he doesn’t hold back. He calls for his players to get paid “what they deserve,” and he has no problem referring to them as “underpaid.” He’ll announce an impromptu kicker tryout in the middle of the season, or he’ll explain matter-of-factly why he will support Arizona State players entering the portal while letting them stay on the roster throughout the playoff run.
In this new, evolving era of the sport, Dillingham has little issue saying the quiet part out loud, which feels integral to his approach. The 34-year-old’s filter is more like a sieve, which stands out against the backdrop of monotone coachspeak machines that equate any display of personality as antithetical to their mission.
Whether he has his arms around his players, whom he can’t stop waxing poetic about, or he is jumping with the ASU student crowd or even arguing with referees after they put one second back on the clock, like they did against BYU, Dillingham — and by extension the Sun Devils — have become the sport’s Energizer Bunnies, speeding past expectations with a combination of fearlessness and chemistry that takes other programs years to achieve.
Arizona State has a running back in Cam Skattebo who has supercharged its offense. It has a defense that has improved leaps and bounds in a year, and a quarterback in Sam Leavitt, who could be a Heisman contender next year. But how the Sun Devils went from being 3-9 in Dillingham’s debut season and picked to finish last in the Big 12 this year to conference champions and College Football Playoff quarterfinalists (where they’ll face Texas in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on Wednesday at 1 p.m. ET) can’t be explained without Dillingham, who is at the center of the glorious frenzy he has created. The Arizona native’s approach, creativity, edge and zeal have all been part of the recipe that has turned a struggling program into a winning one overnight.
“He’s somebody that stays true to himself. He’s not trying to conform to an image,” cornerbacks coach Bryan Carrington said. “He’s trying to do this in a unique, sincere, organic way, and for him being a Sun Devil, you can tell that he’s very passionate about this place, he’s very calculated about this place. He treats this place like his baby, because it’s his dream.”
CHARLIE RAGLE SITS in Arizona State coaches meetings these days and listens intently. His brain often fluctuates between nostalgia and mild disbelief.
Ragle isn’t just the Sun Devils’ assistant head coach and special teams coordinator. He isn’t just a longtime football coach who has coached up and down the ranks of Arizona high school football. He’s, maybe most importantly, the one responsible for Dillingham being here, at the head of a meeting room in front of an entire coaching staff, and not anywhere else — especially not a courtroom.
When Dillingham was entering his senior year of high school football at Chaparral High in Arizona, his father John — a lawyer and member of the school’s booster club — asked Ragle to give Kenny a shot despite him coming off a knee surgery. But once Ragle, then the head coach at Chaparral, saw Kenny struggling to move on the field, he offered him a different opportunity.
“His knee was screwed up, and he came to me at some point that spring and was just like, ‘I can’t play. I can’t do it,'” Ragle said. “”I’m basically done with football.'”
Ragle didn’t want to see Dillingham walk away from the sport, so he asked him to stay, not to play, but to help as a student coach. Dillingham agreed. Once the season was over, however, he told Ragle of his uncertain plans: go to Arizona State and maybe become a lawyer, like his dad. Ragle didn’t want to get in the way, but he asked Dillingham to take his classes and then make his way over to Chaparral in the afternoons to continue helping him.
“I just kind of took a liking to him,” Ragle said. “He was full of energy, same way he is now.”
If Ragle was the one who started the fire within Dillingham to coach, neither he nor anyone else had to do much to stoke it. Dillingham was hooked and poured everything into coaching. He quickly went from student coach to quarterbacks coach from 2007 through 2012 at Chaparral. He was the offensive coordinator for the school in 2013 when he willed himself into a job at Arizona State.
“The energy that he has right now is the same energy he had back then,” said Todd Graham, who was the Sun Devils head coach at the time. “He would come around our program every day and just wear me out wanting to come and sit in on meetings.”
Graham and Mike Norvell, who was then the offensive coordinator at ASU, finally relented and let Dillingham join. The 23-year-old asked if he could attend every day and Graham agreed, not expecting him to actually do it.
“Sure enough, he came every day,” Graham said. “I remember me and Mike watching him and talking about, ‘Man, this guy wants it, he loves ASU, he loves the kids, he loves the program.’ So we let him come around and the next year we hired him as a [graduate assistant].”
Dillingham’s big break turned into a tidal wave of promotions. When Norvell went to be the head coach at Memphis in 2016, Dillingham followed as a graduate assistant. A year later he was the quarterbacks and tight ends coach. A year after that, he was the Tigers’ offensive coordinator at just 28 years old.
“People always told him he was going to be a great coach. That usually means you’re not a very good player,” Ragle said. “But he said they were telling him that when he was a little kid in little league. So I just think that the further he went in this, I think that he saw the success he was having in that. I think he realized he could be pretty good at this.”
Over the years, Dillingham made a name for himself as a youthful personality who could get the most out of quarterbacks such as Jordan Travis and Bo Nix. From starting at Memphis to becoming the offensive coordinator at Auburn, Florida State and Oregon, he was charting a path that seemed to be on an eventual collision course with a head coaching gig. Then, just a few months after he turned 32 years old, his alma mater called.
WALK INTO THE Arizona State locker room on any given day and you might not be able to differentiate player from head coach so easily. Between the fracas of music blaring and Madden playing, Dillingham is often right in the middle, sticks in his hands, trying to do what he does on Saturdays: win.
“He will be head coach one minute and then he’ll be the guy that’s kicking the player’s ass in Madden in the locker room an hour later,” Carrington said.
“He’s definitely a coach that’s a full-time competitor,” graduate offensive lineman Ben Coleman said. “And I think that’s really cool, because if your coach wants to compete so bad and everything, how can you show up to practice and not want to compete?”
Whether it’s video games, pingpong or any other competitive forum, Coleman and his teammates have noticed something else, too: Dillingham isn’t afraid to lose.
“He does care if he wins, but he’s not scared to put himself in a position where he may not be favored in a situation,” Coleman said. “I think that was a good thing this year, because we saw it everyday. He’s not scared to put himself in a situation where, ‘I know you guys don’t think I’m favored. I don’t really care. I’m confident in my work and my abilities.'”
As Arizona State went into the season coming off back-to-back 3-9 campaigns and into the Big 12 without much fanfare, coaches and players say now that they thrived off letting Dillingham’s self-belief seep into the rest of the roster. It does help, Coleman adds, that Dillingham’s youth is more than just relatable; it’s magnetic.
Motivation and self-belief can only carry you so far in a game decided by slim margins and execution. But Dillingham’s attitude goes hand in hand with his football acumen. Players and coaches rave about his ability to think outside the box when it comes to anything from offensive formations to trick plays.
“It’s just how he looks at things and how his mind works. He sees things differently, he’s really good at seeing numbers, and I think he’s better than most people that I’ve been around when it comes to what football is — a math problem,” Ragle said. “He has a gift with numbers and how his mind works. Sometimes you’re like, ‘Dude, that’s completely ass backwards.’ You know what? Nobody else in here sees it that way and that’s OK.”
“He’s a genius. He is a genius forwards and backwards on both sides of the ball,” Carrington said. “The way this game comes to him and how fast he can regurgitate information, find a competitive edge and seek to be crafty.”
Carrington, who completed his diversity coaching fellowship under Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay, often sees the similarities between Dillingham and McVay in terms of their thinking, wittiness and deep wells of football knowledge and concepts.
“From finding ways to exploit teams, to get offenses or defenses in conflict, he’s always got ideas,” Carrington said. “Some of the stuff that we’ve tried this year is almost like he’s playing video games just like he plays Madden against the kids. If that’s a creative field goal fake or a punt, fake or onside kick, he’s always trying to find a competitive edge.”
The edge can often be tangible — a play here, a formation there, a matchup over there — but for Dillingham and ASU, the intangible advantage they have employed this year has come with ease. All season long, Dillingham’s pulpit has professed an often-used “nobody believes in us” mentality that has resonated with a congregation ripe for hearing that message.
Last season, the program had nothing to play for because of a self-imposed bowl ban that followed coach Herm Edwards’ tenure, which was being investigated by the NCAA because of allegations of repeated recruiting violations. The Sun Devils brought in 23 players in the transfer portal last season (only one of them was a four-star recruit). Seventeen of them started in the Big 12 title game.
“I think we’ve embraced being the underdog, because he’s allowed .us to do that and has ignited a fire within everybody to embrace us being picked 16th,” Carrington said. “We’re in the College Football Playoff a year after having a team with nothing to play for and a disaster situation. We were behind the eight ball. So yeah, the guys that chose to come here already had a chip on their shoulder and they wanted to flip the script.”
Not even those inside, however, expected it to flip this quickly.
In the span of a year, the Sun Devils nearly doubled their combined win total of the past two years. Their offense is averaging over 100 more yards per game than it did last season while nearly doubling its points per game total. Their defense, meanwhile, ranks in the top 30 of SP+ and has forced 22 turnovers this season. Last season, it forced nine — a mark that was better than only four teams in all of FBS.
“I would’ve thought we would’ve probably been probably one year away from it, but I knew with the excitement and plan Kenny brought into this program, I knew it would happen pretty quickly,” running backs coach Shaun Aguano said. “We knew [winning] was going to come along sometime. It just happened faster than we thought.”
THE MORE GAMES Arizona State won this season, the more Aguano’s phone kept buzzing with calls and texts from local high school coaches.
Aguano, a longtime staple of the Arizona high school scene and one of the winningest high school coaches in the area, became the interim coach at ASU after the school fired Edwards in 2022. In and around the city, there was a lot of support for Aguano, and keeping him on staff was one of Dillingham’s first decisions. It didn’t take long for Aguano to see that Dillingham had the right mindset for the program.
“When he talks about activating the Valley, he’s got the community involved more than I’ve ever seen in the years I’ve been here,” Aguano said. “That same energy that he shows in those interviews is the exact same thing that he projects when he’s in front of the team or in front of the coaches. He’s bouncing around the hallways from five in the morning till 10 at night, and that carries to the rest of the program.”
When it comes to recruiting and the portal, Dillingham’s spark plays well. As Coleman explained, not every coach has the ability to connect with younger players and relate to them. Follow Dillingham on X, and posts and reposts will quickly fill up your timeline. If there’s anything being said about his team or his players that is positive, he is there to amplify it, comment on it or add to the noise. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to say the 34-year-old is one of the most online coaches in FBS.
“How could you not want to go play for somebody who is publicly advocating for you?” Coleman said.
Dillingham’s approach has been to embrace the game’s evolution rather than fight it or even begrudgingly accept it. It’s why he has no problem asking for money publicly, wearing a T-shirt with ASU’s NIL collective postgame or promoting his players on podiums and through posts and connecting them with local businesses for NIL opportunities.
“We’re doing more with guys who just got it out of the mud, but eventually you should get what you deserve,” Dillingham said after the Sun Devils knocked off No. 14 BYU on Nov. 23, while wearing the collective’s shirt. “Our guys deserve more, and that’s why I wore this.”
“He’s more versed in NIL than anyone we have ever had here,” Aguano said. “He understands exactly what’s going on, the rules of everything, how to take advantage of it.”
It’s not just the players’ pockets he’s thinking about, either. When he has been asked about his own contract extension talks, Dillingham has shifted the focus toward assistants and players. And when the program reached nine wins this season, triggering a $200,000 bonus for Dillingham, he promptly redistributed it among 20 off-field staff members.
“This dude is thinking about football nonstop,” Ragle said. “And it’s not just the X’s and O’s, it’s about how the game is changing. You see guys that are in their early 60s, late 50s, I think growing weary of the game and the way that college football is changing in real time, and he’s over here manufacturing ideas that can help his program.”
But those inside the program know that Dillingham’s fervor and strategy, however impressive, has to be backed by substance, and that, ultimately, comes down to winning. After the Sun Devils earned 11 wins this season, coaches who have been out on the trail or recruiting the portal have noticed the difference in the way ASU is perceived.
“It’s a lot of people that are answering the phones that weren’t answering the phone three months ago,” Carrington said. “We’re the flavor of the month now.”
Graham knows well what the Valley can be when it is, in fact, activated. While he was in Tempe for six seasons, Graham saw the highs and lows, including back-to-back double-digit win seasons in 2012 and 2013 and the way that the city and the school were passionate for a winner. Graham believes that Dillingham’s hire came at what was likely the lowest point of the program after the “debilitating” mistakes that preceded it.
“He had a harder job than I had,” Graham said. “And let me tell you, a year ago, at 3-9, there weren’t many people believing in what he was doing. Now? He’s got a whole lot of people believing. It’s a magical place to be right now.”
While Dillingham may shy away from credit at any turn, there is a clear awareness within the program of how crucial he has been to the turnaround. Football is a team sport, but successful program-building always requires more than just a face.
“I’m like, ‘I know you don’t need credit, but we all know that you’re the driving force of this whole program,'” Coleman said. “Because when stuff goes wrong, he’s the first person that gets looked at, so when stuff goes right, I always like to say that he’s the reason why stuff goes right.”
A lot has gone right for Arizona State this season, and though it is not done yet, what Dillingham has been able to do in a flash has given the Sun Devils hope, momentum, but most importantly, a blueprint for success.
Sports
MLB Awards Week predictions, results: Will All-Star Game starters Skubal and Skenes win Cy Young Awards?
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Bradford Doolittle
The hot stove season is already burning, but even amid the roster shuffling for the 2026 season, we have one last bit of 2025 business: handing out the major awards.
The most prestigious are the four major honors determined by BBWAA voting. These awards will have a lasting impact on baseball history books and Hall of Fame résumés.
On Monday, Athletics first baseman Nick Kurtz was unanimously selected as the American League Rookie of the Year, and Atlanta Braves rookie catcher Drake Baldwin earned the National League honor.
Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy and Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt each won their second consecutive Manager of the Year award on Tuesday.
Here is the remaining schedule (awards are announced starting at 7 ET each night on MLB Network):
Wednesday: Cy Young Awards
Thursday: MVP Awards
MLB will also hold its annual awards show in Las Vegas on Thursday, during which it will recognize its All-MLB squads, the Hank Aaron Awards for each league’s best offensive performer, the Comeback Player of the Year Awards, the Mariano Rivera/Trevor Hoffman Awards for the top relievers, and the Edgar Martinez Awards for best designated hitters. The Executive of the Year Award will also be announced.
I’ll be reacting to each night’s awards announcement throughout the week, but in the meantime, here are some opening comments and some brief reaction to the honors that have been awarded.
Below, we list the three finalists in each of the remaining categories, with what you need to know before the results are announced and my picks to take home the hardware. We’ll update each section with news and analysis as the winners are revealed.
Jump to:
MVP: AL | NL
Cy Young: AL | NL
Rookie of the Year: AL | NL
Manager of the Year: AL | NL
American League Cy Young
Finalists:
Hunter Brown, Houston Astros
Garrett Crochet, Boston Red Sox
Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers
My pick: Skubal
Skubal is well positioned to become the AL’s first repeat Cy Young winner since Pedro Martinez in 2000. He might just be getting started. The dominant lefty didn’t repeat as a pitching Triple Crown winner, but he posted a lower ERA (2.21 to 2.39) and struck out more batters (241 to 228) than he did while winning the Cy Young Award in 2024. For the second straight year, he led the AL in pitching bWAR, FIP and ERA+.
That’s a tough résumé for Crochet to top, but he came pretty close, leading the AL in innings (205⅓) and strikeouts (255) and beating Skubal in wins (18 to 13). Skubal was a little more consistent in terms of average game score (64.2 to 62.6). Skubal really didn’t rout Crochet in any key area, but he beat him just the same in most columns.
Brown is a worthy No. 3, but for him, it’s the same story: He hung with the big two in most areas but didn’t top them. Still, it was another season of improvement for Brown, whose ERA over the past three seasons has gone from 5.09 to 3.49 to 2.43.
Cy Young must-reads:
The extraordinary mystery of the Tigers’ Tarik Skubal
National League Cy Young
Finalists:
Cristopher Sanchez, Philadelphia Phillies
Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh Pirates
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Los Angeles Dodgers
My pick: Sanchez
My AXE system wasn’t particularly emphatic about the No. 3 pitcher in the NL Cy Young column, so Yamamoto is as good a pick there as any. We start with him because his dominant postseason run is fresh in our minds. But that doesn’t factor in here. Maybe it should, but it doesn’t. In any event, I’d have gone with Milwaukee’s Freddy Peralta as my No. 3.
Regardless of the third finalist, during the regular season, Skenes and Sanchez gradually separated themselves from the pack, especially after Sanchez’s teammate Zack Wheeler was injured. They are the easy top two but picking between them isn’t that easy.
Sanchez has the edge in volume — 202 innings to 187⅔, in part because the Pirates eased up on Skenes toward the end. Indeed, failure to do so would have been malpractice. Despite that, Skenes struck out more batters (216 to 212), posted a better ERA (1.97 to 2.50) and led the league in ERA+, WHIP and FIP. The extra 14⅓ innings allowed Sanchez a narrow win in bWAR (8.0 to 7.7).
In the end, their runs saved against average is a virtual dead heat: 53 for Sanchez against 52 for Skenes. Thus for me it comes down to context. Sanchez put up his season for a division champ, Skenes for a cellar dweller. That is not Skenes’ fault, but we’ve got to separate these pitchers somehow. Sanchez’s season was worth 3.2% championship probability added against Skenes’ 0.5%. That’s the clincher for me.
But I think Skenes will win the vote.
Cy Young must-reads:
How young aces Skenes, Skubal dominate
American League MVP
Finalists:
Aaron Judge, New York Yankees
Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners
Jose Ramirez, Cleveland Guardians
My pick: Raleigh
What to know: We’re going to dive deep into the riveting race between Judge and Raleigh later this week. According to my AXE rating, which is an index that expresses the consensus of the leading bottom-line metrics, the winner is Judge (164 to 150) and it’s not particularly close.
Despite the easy statistical case for Judge, I see this as a case in which the narrative and intangible elements overwhelm the metrics. And that’s not to undersell Raleigh’s metrics, which are more than MVP-worthy. But despite another historic season from Judge, I’m going with Raleigh.
Again, we’ll get into the nitty-gritty of the numbers later, but the soft factors that swing my thinking are these: Raleigh’s 60-homer season is the stuff of science fiction when viewed through the lens of what’s expected from every-day catchers. It not only shattered the single-season mark for the position, but it broke Mickey Mantle’s record for homers by a switch-hitter. Mickey freaking Mantle. And Raleigh’s a (darn good) catcher!
Raleigh did all of this as the defensive anchor and clubhouse leader on a division champion. There aren’t many seasons when I’d pick someone as MVP over the 2025 version of Aaron Judge, but this is one of them. Sure, I’m a stat guy, so this feels like a departure from that foundation, but sometimes a narrative is just too compelling to ignore.
Finally, poor Jose Ramirez. This is Ramirez’s sixth time landing in the AL’s top five in MVP balloting, and eighth time in the top 10. But he’s not going to win. Ramirez just keeps churning out the same great season every year. It’s just that there has always been someone a little greater each season.
That being said: Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. should have been the third finalist. He’ll be back.
MVP must-reads:
What it’s really like facing Aaron Judge
Can Yankees build a title-winning team around Aaron Judge?
‘It’s something that’s never been done’: Inside Cal Raleigh’s road to HR history
Why the Mariners are built to last after a crushing ALCS loss
National League MVP
Finalists:
Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers
Kyle Schwarber, Philadelphia Phillies
Juan Soto, New York Mets
My pick: Ohtani
What to know: Together, the three NL MVP finalists logged 63% of their starts at designated hitter. Most of the non-DH starts came from Soto, whose defensive metrics continue to suggest a future of increased DH time. Still, the days of DHs being locked out of the MVP chase are clearly over.
Ohtani was the first exclusive DH to win an MVP last year, though he’d won it before while serving as an every-day DH in addition to pitching. He logged 1.1 bWAR this season for his 47 innings on the mound, which could have proved to be a tiebreaker if he and the other finalists were close. But it’s Ohtani all the way.
As hitters, all three used up a similar number of outs as Ohtani, who had at least a 20-run advantage in runs created over both. Shockingly, it was Soto who had the best baserunning numbers, thanks to his 38-steal breakout and Ohtani deemphasizing that part of his game. But Ohtani provided easily the most defensive value with his pitching, while Soto’s defense was a negative and Schwarber was almost exclusively a DH.
Basically, everything Schwarber and Soto did, Ohtani did better — and he pitched well. Even Schwarber’s league-leading RBI count (132) is trumped by Ohtani’s decided edge in WPA, a category in which he led the league. It’s Ohtani’s award, again, and it will be No. 4 for him. Only Barry Bonds has won more.
Not for nothing, you know which position player posted the highest bWAR total? That would be a nonfinalist: Arizona’s Geraldo Perdomo (7.0 bWAR), though he did finish behind Ohtani when the latter’s pitching bWAR is added.
MVP must-reads:
2025 MLB most exciting player bracket: Ohtani, Judge, more
The improbability of Shohei Ohtani’s greatness
Schwarber, All-Star swing-off captures the beauty of baseball
Inside Juan Soto’s wild first Mets season
Juan Soto, the showman, finally showing up for Mets
American League Rookie of the Year
Winner: Nick Kurtz, Athletics (unanimous)
Final tally: Nick Kurtz 210 (30 first-place votes), Jacob Wilson 107, Roman Anthony 72, Noah Cameron 54, Colson Montgomery 23, Carlos Narvaez 21, Jack Leiter 6, Will Warren 5, Luke Keaschall 3, Braydon Fisher 2, Shane Smith 2, Cam Smith 2, Chandler Simpson 1, Luis Morales 1, Jasson Dominguez 1
Doolittle’s pick: Kurtz
Takeaway: Before the season, Kurtz’s name wasn’t near the top of the list for AL Rookie of the Year candidates. He didn’t lack hype — he was viewed by many as the Athletics’ top prospect — but his meteoric rise was unexpected.
Kurtz, the fourth pick in 2024, played just 12 minor league games and another 13 in last year’s Arizona Fall League before this season. So, it made sense that he began the season in Triple-A, where he posted a 1.000-plus OPS, which he has done every step of the way.
Kurtz debuted in the majors April 23, and 117 games later, his 1.002 rookie-season OPS ranks as the fifth best for a rookie (minimum 480 plate appearances) behind Aaron Judge, Ted Williams, Albert Pujols and Ryan Braun. But none of those greats matched Kurtz’s accomplishment against the Astros on July 25, when he hit four homers, finished with six hits and tied Shawn Green’s big league record for total bases in a game (19).
The ninth Rookie of the Year in Athletics history, Kurtz’s slash line (.290/.383/.619) at 22 is evidence that he’s the complete package at the plate and still might improve. But even if he doesn’t, and this is what he is going forward, he’s one of the best hitters in the majors.
The other two finalists — Anthony and Wilson — were both high on preseason lists for the award and validated that anticipation with fine rookie seasons. Wilson’s .311 average ranked third in the majors. He was one of seven qualifying hitters in the majors to hit at least .300. Anthony lived up to massive hype upon his arrival at Fenway Park, but he suffered an oblique injury Sept. 2, ending his chances of overtaking Kurtz for the award.
Here’s how my AXE leaderboard had it:
1. Nick Kurtz, Athletics (126 AXE, finalist)
2. Jacob Wilson, Athletics (118, finalist)
3. (tie) Roman Anthony, Red Sox (115, finalist)
Noah Cameron, Royals (115)
Colson Montgomery, White Sox (115)
6. Carlos Narvaez, Red Sox (110)
7. Shane Smith, White Sox (109)
ROY must-reads:
Passan Awards: Nick Kurtz wins ‘Individual Performance of the Year’
How a swing tweak has Red Sox rookie Roman Anthony rolling
National League Rookie of the Year
Winner: Drake Baldwin, Atlanta Braves
Final tally: Drake Baldwin 183 (21 first-place votes), Cade Horton 139 (9), Caleb Durbin 69, Isaac Collins 62, Daylen Lile 17, Agustin Ramirez 10, Chad Patrick 9, Jakob Marsee 8, Jack Dreyer 4, Matt Shaw 4, Jacob Misiorowski 2, Nolan McLean 2, Heriberto Hernandez 1
Doolittle’s pick: Baldwin
Takeaway: The voters favored Baldwin’s full-season production over Horton’s remarkable second half. It was a tough call, but Baldwin established himself as one of the game’s outstanding young catchers. Baldwin hit .274/.341/.469 over 124 games, numbers strong enough to earn him regular DH time on days he wasn’t catching. That’s key, because Atlanta still has veteran Sean Murphy under contract for three more years.
Like his AL counterpart Kurtz, Baldwin was considered his organization’s top prospect by many when the season began, but he was expected to make his big league debut late in 2025 or in 2026. Baldwin got his chance when Murphy suffered a cracked rib in spring training. The Braves had several journeyman backups in camp, but Baldwin was so impressive that he started behind the plate on Opening Day.
Baldwin is the first catcher to win NL Rookie of the Year since Buster Posey in 2010. The only other Braves catcher to win the award was Earl Williams (1971), though Williams divided his time between catching and the infield.
If Horton had a first half that matched his post-All-Star-break performance, he might have been a unanimous pick and even entered the Cy Young debate. In 12 second-half starts, Horton went 8-1 with a 1.03 ERA, allowing just 33 hits while striking out 54 over 61⅓ innings. He allowed one run or fewer in 11 of those outings. Horton’s efforts helped the Chicago Cubs, who were scrambling to make the postseason with a short-handed rotation. This shows up in his probability stats: Horton ranked 12th among all NL pitchers in win probability added and 13th in championship probability added.
Durbin was a vital cog in the Brewers’ run to a franchise-best 97 wins. He was also one of several rookies in Milwaukee who were key contributors to the Brewers’ run to the NLCS. If “Brewers rookie” was an option on the ballot, “Brewers rookie” should have won.
Here’s how my AXE leaderboard had it:
1. Drake Baldwin, Braves (115 AXE, finalist)
2. Caleb Durbin, Brewers (113, finalist)
3. Cade Horton, Cubs (112, finalist)
4. Isaac Collins, Brewers (111)
5. Chad Patrick, Brewers (110)
6. Jakob Marsee, Marlins (109)
7. Braxton Ashcraft, Pirates (108)
American League Manager of the Year
Winner: Stephen Vogt, Cleveland Guardians
Final tally: Vogt 113 (28 first-place votes), John Schneider 91 (10), Dan Wilson 50 (2), Alex Cora 7 (1), A.J. Hinch 6, Joe Espada 3
Doolittle’s pick: Schneider
Takeaway: The AL Manager of the Year race remained murky to me up to and including the day that awards finalists were announced. EARL, an algorithm that seeks to create order out of the chaotic process of rating managers, was all over the place through the season. Hinch, who was favored in many of the betting markets until he turned out to not be a finalist, was submarined by his team’s drastic midseason fall-off (though he should have received credit for side-stepping a complete collapse and earning a playoff spot).
That left last year’s winner, Vogt, whose Guardians made a stirring run to overtake the Tigers in the AL Central, as well as Wilson, skipper of the AL West champion Mariners, and Schneider, who guided the Blue Jays to the East crown. In the end, the voters were picking between the AL’s three division-winning managers.
Worst to first is always a great narrative — and perhaps the best argument in favor for Schneider after the Blue Jays rebounded from 2024’s last-place finish to win Toronto’s first division title in a decade, one that was validated with a postseason run all the way to extra innings of Game 7 of the World Series. Schneider was strong in wins versus Pythagorean-based expectation (94 wins for a win expectation of 88.5) and record in one- and two-run contests (43-30).
But Vogt beat him in both areas, and the same held true in terms of preseason expectations. Toronto beat its preseason over/under consensus by 10 wins, the fourth-best performance in the majors. Third best? Vogt, at 10.5. Vogt becomes the fourth manager to win back-to-back awards, minutes after the Murphy in the NL became the third.
Worst to first: Great story. Coming back from 15½ games back on July 8? Even better.
Here’s how my EARL leaderboard had it:
1. A.J. Hinch, Tigers (108.3 EARL)
2. John Schneider, Blue Jays (107.8, finalist)
3. Joe Espada, Astros (107.0)
4. Stephen Vogt, Guardians (105.2, finalist)
5. Dan Wilson, Mariners (103.5, finalist)
6. Matt Quatraro, Royals (101.8)
7. Mark Kotsay, Athletics (99.6)
Note: EARL is a metric that looks at how a team’s winning percentage varies from expectations generated by projections, run differential and one-run record. While attributing these measures to managerial performance is presumptive, the metric does tend to track well with the annual balloting.
Manager of the Year must-reads:
The magic chemistry of the Blue Jays clubhouse
National League Manager of the Year
Winner: Pat Murphy, Milwaukee Brewers
Final tally: Murphy 141 (27 first-place votes), Terry Francona 49 (2), Rob Thomson 32 (1), Craig Counsell 24, Clayton McCullough 22, Torey Lovullo 1, Mike Shildt 1
Doolittle’s pick: Murphy
Takeaway: The measures that feed EARL anointed Murphy pretty early in the season. Though the Brewers were a division winner in 2024, when Murphy won the award in his first full season as a big league manager, they were pegged for a .500-ish baseline entering the season. Instead, Milwaukee raced to a franchise record, a 17-win surplus against expectation that was the most in the majors. (McCullough’s Marlins were plus-15, hence his presence in the EARL leaderboard below.)
Murphy creates a fun, positive clubhouse atmosphere, keeping things light when it’s warranted, and getting heavy when it’s needed. He treats everyone the same, from the journeyman roster fill-in to franchise cornerstone Christian Yelich, not to mention everyone else in the great ecosystem of baseball that comes across his path on a daily basis. His skill set in building an upbeat culture doesn’t get enough attention — it’s an essential trait for a club that’s always iterating its roster.
One sign of a good manager is the ability to integrate rookies. Well, this season Milwaukee easily led the majors in rookie WAR, even as the Brewers chased another division crown. They played an exciting brand of offensive baseball that featured plenty of action on the basepaths and adherence to situational execution. They deployed one of the game’s top defenses. All of these things are hallmarks of a well-managed squad.
The Brewers remain perhaps baseball’s best-run franchise, a distinction that requires aptitude from the front office to the dugout, where Murphy presides. He becomes the first back-to-back NL Manager of the Year winner since Bobby Cox (2004-05), who did it with the Braves. The only other back-to-back winner was Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash, the AL’s honoree in 2020-21. Murphy, who managed San Diego on an interim basis in 2015, is the first skipper to win in his first two full seasons.
Here’s how my EARL leaderboard had it:
1. Pat Murphy, Brewers (113.7 EARL, finalist)
2. Clayton McCullough, Marlins (106.9)
3. Oliver Marmol, Cardinals (106.1)
4. Rob Thomson, Phillies (103.9, finalist)
5. Craig Counsell, Cubs (103.4)
6. Mike Shildt, Padres (103.2)
7. Terry Francona, Reds (101.7 finalist)
Manager of the Year must-reads:
Welcome to ‘Milwaukee Community College’: How the Brewers built a $115 million juggernaut
Why Terry Francona, Bruce Bochy came back to managing in MLB
Other awards
Just a run-through of my picks, leaving aside the Comeback Player category, which is tough to attack analytically:
Executive of the Year: Matt Arnold, Milwaukee Brewers. I have a metric I use to track organizational performance. It looks at things such as the performance of acquired players, organizational records and the value produced by rookies. Arnold’s club topped the charts. Arnold won this award last year, so we’ll find out if there is an Arnold fatigue at work here. If Arnold doesn’t win, I’d lean toward Seattle’s Jerry Dipoto.
All-MLB: My All-MVP first team, courtesy of AXE:
1B: Matt Olson, Atlanta Braves
2B: Nico Hoerner, Chicago Cubs
SS: Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City Royals
3B: Jose Ramirez, Cleveland Guardians
C: Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners
OF: Juan Soto, New York Mets
OF: Aaron Judge, New York Yankees
OF: Corbin Carroll, Arizona Diamondbacks
DH: Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers
LHP: Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers
RHP: Paul Skenes, Pittsburgh Pirates
RP: Aroldis Chapman, Boston Red Sox
Hank Aaron Award: Aaron Judge (AL, New York Yankees); Shohei Ohtani (NL, Los Angeles Dodgers)
Mariano Rivera Award: Aroldis Chapman, Boston Red Sox
Trevor Hoffman Award: Edwin Diaz, New York Mets
Gold Gloves: The winners have been announced and can be found here. My quibbles: I would have gone with Toronto’s Alejandro Kirk at AL catcher over Detroit’s Dillon Dingler. On the NL side, I’d have liked to find a spot for Washington’s Jacob Young, but the insistence on LF/CF/RF distinctions ruled that out. All in all, another pretty solid job in an awards category that used to be rife with absurdities.
Inspirational thought of the week:
I’m riding slow in my Prius
All-leather, tinted windows, you can’t see us!
Everybody’s trying to park you can feel the tension
I’m in electric mode, can’t even hear the engine
Just then I saw a spot open up
My timing’s perfect! I’m creeping up …
But then this other dude try to steal it
Going the wrong way!
“Hey man I’ve had a long day!”
It’s getting real in the Whole Foods parking lot!
I got my skill and you know it gets sparked a lot
— “It’s Getting Real in the Whole Foods Parking Lot,” DJ Spider
Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located in the massive audio warehouse where Kirk Herbstreit keeps all of the recordings of the “AAAAAWWWWWW”s that people release when they see Peter the dog, we took a look at the calendar hanging on the front of our refrigerator and realized … hang on … we realized that it’s not 2008 like this calendar says … OK … here’s the new one … let’s start over.
We looked at the calendar hanging on the front of our refrigerator and realized there are only three weekends remaining in the 2025 college football season. Or, if you live in the world of #MACtion like we do, only three more weekends plus three more weeks of Tuesday and Wednesday games played between banks of plowed snow.
That means stuff is about to get real. Sure, the hoity-toity top 10 will tell you it’s all about the CFP. But around here, it’s about the BFP, the Bottom 10 Football Playoff. And once we wake up Charlie Weis and get our internet dialed back up, we too shall be shaping up a bracket that shall determine a champion. The real champion. The champion of life. Or, actually, Life. The board game. Where the gold revenge squares give you the option to “sue for damages” with the goal of hitting “retire in style” or “retire to the country to become a philosopher.”
And now it suddenly dawns on us that Brian Kelly and his lawyers must like board games.
With apologies to former Ohio back David Board, former Idaho receiver Tom Gamelin, as well as Georgia State receiver Keron Milton, Air Force lineman Brian Bradley and Steve Harvey, here are the post-Week 11 Bottom 10 rankings.
The Minuetmen are the nation’s only remaining winless team, but the final three weeks of their #MACtion revenge reunion tour would seem to provide two solid chances to taste victory before tasting the Thanksgiving turkey, beginning with a Wednesday night Pillow Fight of the Week of the Year Mega Bowl visit from Bottom 10 Wait Lister Northern Ill-ugh-noise, which airs at 7 p.m. ET on ESPNU. The ESPN Analytics Ouija board says UMass has a 21.8% chance of victory, its best shot for the rest of the season.
During this week’s traditional post-weekend #Bottom10Lobbying deluge on social media, I heard from a Nevada grad named @mugtang who wrote: “Nevada would lose by 3 touchdowns to UMass! Rank us #1 in the bottom 10. Or would it be #136?” In related news, after reading his tweet, I went to the store, bought some Tang drink mix and drank it from a mug. With rum in it. Like the astronauts used to do.
The Panthers lost last week at Coastal Carolina 40-27. Next, they host Marshall, which is convenient for fans of the Thundering Herd, who could just follow the Georgia State bus as it left town because it is a natural law that at any given time, half the population of West Virginia is at Myrtle Beach.
The Niners travelled Down East to EC-Yew and lost 48-22. In their defense, they weren’t themselves because they were already testing out what it’s like to play covered in bubble wrap and rubber boat bumpers, preparing for their Week 14 trip to Georgia.
Legend has it that after the angel Moroni showed Joseph Smith the golden plates upon which the Mormon Church was founded, he also warned Smith to make sure to heed the oft-forgotten inscription located on the scratched up backside of the plates: “BEWARE THE COVETED FIFTH SPOT LEST IT BITE YOU IN THE BEHIND IN LUBBOCK.”
Sources tell Bottom 10 JortsCenter that BC and UMass are secretly looking to play a Bottom 10 Toilet Bowl title game on Christmas Eve morning, to be held in the parking lot of the Mass Turnpike Natick Service Plaza, sponsored by Dunkin’, D’Angelo’s sandwiches and Vinny’s Vape and Spray Tan. Go Sox.
Hear me out. A reality show where all the college football coaches who have been fired this season meet at a Buffalo Wild Wings and watch games together. Or better yet, they do it at Mike Gundy’s ranch.
It’s always tough when you didn’t know what you wish you’d known at one time, but it felt better because you thought you knew plenty about a time that was still to come, only to see the time still to come not be what you thought you knew and make that first thing you didn’t know at the time feel like even more of a missed unknown opportunity. See: We didn’t realize how big the Week 3 game between MTSU and Nevada was, and now the game we thought was going to be big — MTSU vs. Sam Houston State on Nov. 22 — isn’t as large as it once was. Why?
Because of what the Beavs just did. Or, actually, what they failed to do. The Other OSU spent the first two months of the season in these rankings before departing thanks to two straight wins, over Lafayette and fellow 2Pac members Warshington State. It was like the scene in “The Dark Knight Rises” when Bruce Wayne climbed out of that underground desert prison he’d been banished to by Bane … only this time when he got to the top, Bane was waiting to step on his fingers. And who is Bane in this Batman Bottom 10 metaphor?
(For full Bane effect, read the next lines with your hand cupped over your mouth while doing the accent of a shouting cockney actor who is constipated, while wearing a Bearkats hoodie.) “Kurious how you konkluded this kontrived eskape would be sukcessful, Kaped Krusader! Now we kome for you, Blue Raiders!”
Waiting List: Livin’ on Tulsa Time, Colora-duh State, UTEPid, Arkansaw Fightin’ Petrinos, South Alabama Redundancies, Northern Ill-ugh-noise, billable hours.
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Jake Trotter
The NCAA has placed Michigan State football on three years of probation for violations that occurred under Mel Tucker’s tenure as coach.
The violations occurred due to the participation of three ineligible players. Now, the Spartans will vacate all 14 wins from the past three seasons, a school spokesperson confirmed. That includes all five wins last season during Jonathan Smith’s first year as coach.
The three players are no longer with the program, the spokesperson said.
Michigan State will also be penalized $30,000 plus 1.5% of the football program’s budget. For the 2024 season, that budget was $58.6 million, according to figures provided by Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.
The Spartans will also face restrictions on official and unofficial visits, recruiting communications, recruiting person days, and off-campus recruiting contacts and evaluations over the probationary period.
The school released a statement saying it negotiated a resolution with the NCAA to minimize the penalties on the current team.
The NCAA handed Tucker, former Michigan State general manager Saeed Khalif and former assistant coach Brandon Jordan show-cause penalties. Tucker was given a three-year order. The NCAA said Tucker “failed to adequately monitor his program.” Khalif (six years) and Jordan (five years) were given longer penalties for knowingly providing impermissible recruiting inducements, according to the NCAA. The three cannot coach in college until their show-cause orders end.
Michigan State fired Tucker for cause in 2023 after he was accused of sexual harassment.
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