Pete Alonso’s big season is still piling up hardware, and the latest recognition only adds to what has already been a remarkable year.
On Wednesday night in Las Vegas, Alonso was named the All-MLB First Team first baseman. The same night brought another Orioles honor, as center fielder Colton Cowser won the Play of the Year Award for his game-saving catch in Colorado on August 31 st.
Alonso’s awards run doesn’t stop there. He was the unanimous winner of the Most Valuable Oriole and also took home the Orioles Advocates Oriole Way Award.
He was the team’s nominee for the Heart and Hustle and Roberto Clemente Award, too. And with Boston’s Willson Contreras, he is an AL finalist at first base for the Silver Slugger awards, which will be announced on Monday night.
The biggest individual recognition may still be the one he just earned in the American League MVP voting. Alonso finished fifth overall, behind unanimous winner Houston’s Yordan Alvarez, Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero, the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr., and New York’s Cam Schlitter, the unanimous Cy Young Award winner.
Twenty-eight of the 30 voters included Alonso somewhere on their ballot, with support ranging from third to 10 th. The finish was the best of his career. Before this year, he had received MVP votes four times with the New York Mets: seventh in 2019, when he won National League Rookie of the Year, eighth in 2022, 17 th in 2023 and 11 th in 2025.
This season gave Alonso a 5.0 WAR, second only to his 2019 rookie campaign, when he set the rookie home run record with 54. He also won the AL home run title with 43 and became the first player to lead both leagues in RBIs with 113. His 131 RBIs in 2022 led the NL.
That production came in every game the Orioles played. Alonso appeared in all 161 of their games, and the club went 79-82 with him in the lineup.
A reader had recently asked how many games Baltimore might have won without him, and the easy answer would have been to subtract his 5.0 WAR and land at 74. I said 70 to 72.
Even with the Orioles’ rough finish, Alonso’s place in the top five feels justified. Witt posted a 6.7 WAR, but Kansas City won only 69 games.
The Orioles have waited a long time for this kind of recognition. It has been 35 years since an Oriole won American League MVP, dating back to Cal Ripken Jr. in 1991.
Since then, 11 of the other 14 AL teams have had a winner, with only Cleveland, Kansas City and Tampa Bay still waiting. The Rays, in particular, have never had an MVP since joining the league in 1998.
The Orioles’ Cy Young drought is even longer. Steve Stone’s win in 1980 is now 46 years in the past, leaving only the Texas Rangers with a longer wait, and they’ve never had one.
Ripken’s own MVP season came in 1991, when Baltimore finished last at 67-95. His 11.5 WAR was the highest for an AL MVP since Carl Yastrzemski’s 12.5 in 1967, the year Yastrzemski won the Triple Crown. WAR wasn’t part of the conversation in either of those eras.
Baltimore has still collected some major BBWAA awards in recent years. Gunnar Henderson won the Orioles’ first Rookie of the Year since Gregg Olsen in 1989, and Brandon Hyde was Manager of the Year in 2023, the Orioles’ first since Buck Showalter in 2014.
This year’s award season also brought a new category: Reliever of the Year. The ballot was a challenge, and the winner was Toronto’s Louis Varland.
Tampa Bay’s Bryan Baker, Cleveland’s Cade Smith, Houston’s Josh Hader and Texas’ Jacob Latz rounded out the five-player ballot. No Orioles reliever received a vote.
Had the award existed in 2016, Zack Britton would have been the obvious choice. He saved 47 games in 47 chances that season, posted a 0.54 ERA and allowed just four earned runs and one home run.
Even so, he finished fourth in the Cy Young voting, with only five first-place votes, including mine. Boston’s Rick Porcello won, and that vote drew plenty of criticism for backing an Oriole.
That’s the thing about watching a player every day: you see how central he is to everything a team does. Alonso’s season has made that case over and over again.
In Other News...
Orioles Free Agency Plan Looks Clearer Than Fans May Want
With Pete Alonso now in the fold, the Orioles offseason picture is getting a little sharper, and maybe a little less ambitious than some fans would prefer. The next priorities still point to the outfield and the starting rotation, but the way Baltimore has operated under this front office suggests the club is more likely to shop for value than chase the biggest names on the market. That makes the free-agent board easier to read, even if it does not make it more exciting.
Among the pitchers being discussed as realistic fits are David Peterson, Nick Martinez and Patrick Sandoval, all of whom bring different kinds of appeal without pushing the Orioles into a bidding war. The outfield market looks similar, with two targets standing out as plausible additions if Baltimore sticks to its usual budget-minded approach. It is the kind of plan that can fill needs, but it also leaves open the question of whether the Orioles will do enough to match the expectations that come with a roster built to contend. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Keep Getting Linked To The Kind Of Move Fans Dread
The Orioles are still shopping for starting pitching, and the names surfacing fit a familiar winter pattern for fans who would rather see a younger, higher-upside arm in the mix. Baltimore has shown interest in free agents Nick Martinez and Matthew Boyd, two veteran left- and right-handed options in their mid-30s who could help either in the rotation or as flexible bullpen pieces.
Martinez and Boyd each bring a different kind of appeal, from recent performance to the ability to cover multiple roles, but both also come with the sort of age and injury questions that make this market feel less than ideal. For a club trying to bolster its staff without overcommitting, the Orioles seem to be circling the kind of move that can stabilize a team in the short term while leaving plenty of debate about whether it is the right long-term answer. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Fans Have A New Reason To Watch Vance Honeycutt Closely
The Arizona Fall League handed out its annual awards this week, and for Orioles fans, Vance Honeycutt came away with a notable honor after being named Defensive Player of the Year. The recognition adds another layer of intrigue around one of Baltimores more closely watched young players, especially at a time when the organization is always looking for prospects who can impact the game in more than one way.
The AFLs award list also spotlighted a handful of other standouts from the season, with Welbyn Francisca taking MVP, Tai Peete earning Offensive Player of the Year and Jack ODowd being named Breakout Player of the Year. Kenya Huggins was selected as Reliever of the Year, Teo Banks received the Dernell Stenson Sportsmanship Award and Maddox Long won the leagues new Community Champion Award, but Honeycutts defensive recognition is the one that will keep Baltimore followers paying attention. [Read more 🡒]