2025 Minor League Baseball Awards: Pitcher and Hitter of the Year, biggest surprise and biggest disappointment

In a matter of days, the Minor League Baseball season will come to a close. As is tradition around these parts, I’m putting a bow on the year by handing out some superlatives.

Below, I’ve named the top pitcher and hitter of the minor-league campaign, as well as the biggest surprise and disappointment.

As always, keep in mind that there’s usually room for disagreement on these designations. Now, let’s get to it.

Back in the spring, I named Tong as a minor-league breakout candidate. A win is a win in the world of prospect prognostication, but I’ll admit I didn’t foresee him performing this well. Indeed, he led all minor-league qualifiers in ERA (1.43), FIP (1.70), and strikeout rate (40.5%). Tong spent most of his season in Double-A, receiving a bump to Triple-A in August that proved to be short-lived before the Mets promoted him to the majors to aid their ailing starting rotation.

Tong combines a deceptive delivery, one that sees him get far down the mound to create a flatter plane despite a vertical arm slot, with a rising mid-90s fastball that grades as his best pitch. His changeup generated its share of impressive results, too, though his aptitude for throwing it for strikes hasn’t yet transferred to the majors (albeit in an extremely small sample size). 

Moving forward, I suspect the Mets will challenge Tong to improve his breaking balls. That, plus his command (he walked nearly 11% of the batters he faced in the minors) will dictate his fate.

McGonigle appeared in just one game in April before missing more than a month because of an ankle injury. That interruption didn’t prevent him from being the most productive qualified hitter in the minors, according to FanGraphs’ wRC+ metric. As of this writing, he’s hit .303/.409/.569 with 17 home runs, 10 stolen bases, and 14 more walks than strikeouts in 85 games across three levels. 

McGonigle boasts well-above-average bat-to-ball skills that enable him to run an 82% contact rate on the season, a fitting statistic given his operation resembles a left-handed hitter during a Jose Altuve impersonation. Speaking of Altuve, it’s fair to write that he’s one of several key hitters who have demonstrated that height doesn’t measure slugging output. McGonigle may soon be another example of that dynamic: he’s skilled at lifting and pulling the ball, which explains why 14 of his 17 home runs have exited to right or right-center field. Factor in an above-average command of the strike zone and he ought to contribute in each of the triple-slash categories at maturation.

The Tigers were quick to rule out a big-league debut for McGonigle this year, but it’s anyone’s guess as to what they’ll do with him come next spring. The PPI program incentivizes teams to err on the side of aggression with their top prospects. As such, it would be silly for the Tigers to shut the door on McGonigle breaking camp with the big-league club next March. Stay tuned.

Dedicated readers will no doubt be familiar with Honeycutt’s name dating back to his collegiate days at UNC. He was a plausible top-10 pick heading into his platform year, a potential future Gold Glove-caliber outfielder with above-average power whose game featured one big problem: a hit tool so poor that it served as a legitimate threat to his big-league prospects. 

The Orioles nabbed Honeycutt at No. 22 in the 2024 draft, and I was hopeful that they could help get his swing-and-miss issues in check, putting him on a Jordan Westburg-like arc. Maybe that’ll still happen, but it sure hasn’t yet. Honeycutt spent his first full professional season in High-A, where he hit .171/.284/.275 with five home runs and 32 stolen bases in 101 games. He struck out in more than 40% of his trips to the plate, the result of him working deep counts and whiffing on nearly 40% of his swings. 

I don’t want to pile on too much here, but clearly that’s not a successful formula. All I (and the Orioles) can do is hope that another offseason spent under professional guidance will help Honeycutt correct his course before it’s too late.

Griffin was, heading into the 2024 draft, essentially a prep proxy for Honeycutt: a middle-of-the-diamond athlete with a star ceiling whose shaky hit tool destabilized his floor. 

I believed there was a real chance that the start of Griffin’s professional career would be plagued by swing-and-miss issues, the likes of which would make him a long-term project. As such, I was probably too conservative in how I evaluated him. Clearly I was wrong. While he did whiff on more than a quarter of his swings, they didn’t prevent him from having an outstanding season.

Griffin hit .333/.418/.535 with 21 home runs and 65 stolen bases in 118 games split across three levels, including a stretch in Double-A. It’s hard to do much better than those marks, but I think the most encouraging aspect of his season was how he kept his strikeout rate below 23%. If he can do that heading forward — heck, if he can just keep it around 25% — he stands a real chance to reach that aforementioned star ceiling.

The question for the Pirates heading into next spring is how aggressive they’re willing to be with Griffin. He won’t turn 21 until April 2027, but he seems likely to have force his way to the majors long before then.