Cristopher Sanchez has finished as the Juan Marichal Award runner-up in back-to-back years, and both times the margin has left plenty of room for debate.
The Phillies left-hander was second again on yesterday’s livestream announcement from Juan Marichal himself, finishing 158 points behind Junior Caminero. It comes after Sanchez ended up second to Juan Soto in 2025, when the vote was decided by 124 points, 443 to 319.
Since 2021, the award has recognized the best Dominican player in Major League Baseball, and Sanchez has now twice come up just short. The first loss was easier to explain.
In 2025, Sanchez turned in a season that would have won a National League Cy Young in most years, but he still finished behind MLB sophomore Paul Skenes for that honor. This year’s Cy Young race also pointed him toward second place, with nearly every prediction model - including ESPN and Fangraphs - projecting him behind Jacob Misiorowski.
The Juan Marichal Award, though, is a different kind of argument. Sanchez is being measured against players at another position, and if WAR is the guide, the case for him grows louder.
In 2025, Sanchez piled up 8.1 rWAR and 6.5 fWAR over 202 innings, posting a 2.50 ERA. Soto finished with 6.1 rWAR and 5.7 fWAR, along with 43 home runs, 38 stolen bases and a .921 OPS. That gap, while not enormous on paper, still leaves room to question how Soto claimed the award by 124 votes.
The same debate resurfaced in 2026, when Sanchez again posted 8.1 rWAR, this time with 6.2 fWAR across 207 innings and a 2.91 ERA. His season was a little less dominant than the year before, but he also had weaker defense behind him. His average exit velocity stayed the same from one year to the next, while his opponents’ BABIP climbed by 37 points.
Caminero, meanwhile, delivered a powerful year of his own with 42 home runs and an .885 OPS, but his numbers still didn’t stack up cleanly against Sanchez’s overall value. He finished with 5.7 rWAR and 5.3 fWAR.
So while Sanchez once again found himself in second place, the broader story is the same one that played out a year ago: the Phillies ace keeps producing seasons that belong in the award conversation, only to watch someone else take the trophy.
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