On Thursday night, MLB announced the MVPs of the 2025 season. As is usually the case, there were no surprises at the top of the ballot. Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani brought home his second consecutive NL MVP award for the Dodgers and his third straight MVP. Yankees slugger Aaron Judge earned the honor for the AL in a very tight race over Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh.
However, the MVP ballot can historically contain a few oddities contained within. The Baseball Writer’s Association of America is in charge of voting for the league MVPs every year, based on a tally of 30 votes, and the voters are required to rank their top 10 choices for MVP. That creates a large enough pool of votes that each season’s ballot includes some unexpected names earning exactly one MVP vote.
