2025 McDonald Award winner

Green Lake's Spencer Schwellenbach and Paul Skenes of Empire City topped the field again, this time for the Ben McDonald Award, honoring the DMBL's top pitcher in 2025.

It was Schwellenbach who came out on top again, becoming the first pitcher to win both the Listach and McDonald Awards in the same season. Cole Ragans of Poovey Farms almost did it last year, winning the McDonald Award but getting edged out by Nolan Jones for the Listach Award. 

In 2002, rookie Mark Buehrle of Columbia won the McDonald Award but strangely enough, Hoboken rookie Joel Pineiro nabbed the Listach Award as the top rookie. The only other player to win the Listach and one of the two major awards in the same season was Mike Trout, who also took home the Mitchell Award in 2013 with Philly. Gary Sanchez came close in 2017 with Hopatcong, beating Trea Turner for the Listach but falling 3 points short of Hoboken's Miguel Cabrera for the Mitch.

The McDonald Award is voted upon by the DMBL's 20 owners; 10 submitted ballots this year with six slots on a 10-7-5-3-2-1 point system.

	BEN MCDONALD AWARD	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	Pts
1	Spencer Schwellenbach, GL	7	2					84
2	Paul Skenes, EC	1	6	2	1			65
3	Zack Wheeler, PHI	1		4		5		40
4	Logan Gilbert, VAN		1	3	3	2	1	36
5	Jakub Junis, FL		1		2		2	15
6	Garret Crochet, FL	1						10
7	Framber Valdez, SCS			1	1		1	9
8	Emmanuel Clase, BR				1	1	1	6
9	Blake Snell, MTN				1	1		5
10	Nick Martinez, FLA						3	3
-	Seth Lugo, VAN				1			3
12	Dylan Cease, EP					1		2
13	Logan Webb, PHI						1	1
-	Joe Jimenez, NWK						1	1

italics = relief pitcher
* = rookie

Last year, 16 pitchers received support across 10 ballots cast.

Schwellenbach (22-5) was left off of one ballot and still finished 1st in voting thanks to 7 1st-place votes - no one else had more than. He also got 2 2nd-place votes. The next 3 candidates appeared on all 10 ballots. Skenes topped all players with 6 2nd-place votes while also getting 1 1st, 2 3rds, and 1 4th to finish with 65 points.

ERA champion Zack Wheeler (2.28) of Philly, a regular on McDonald ballots in recent years, picked up 1 1st place vote to go with 4 3rd-place ballots, the most of any pitcher, and 5 5th-place votes. He finished 3rd with 40 points, just ahead of Vancouver's Logan Gilbert, with 36 points. It was a smattering of all kinds of votes but the 1st place variety for Gilbert: 1 2nd, 3 3rd and 4ths, 2 5ths and a 6th.

It was a big drop-off in voting after that. Three relief pitchers received support led by Junis, who put up starter-like numbers for Florida and finished a distant 5th with 15 points (1 2nd-place, 2 4ths, and 2 5ths). Eck Award winner Emmanuel Clase of Blue Ridge got some love, finishing 8th with 6 points, on the strength of single 4th-, 5th- and 6th-place votes. And finally, Newark's Joe Jimenez, the league's leader in the saves (32), picked up a solitary 6th-place vote to tie with Philly's Logan Webb, last year's runner-up, for 13th in voting.

No. 1 overall draft pick Garret Crochet of Florida received only 1 vote but it was a 1st-place vote so he finished with 10 points, good for 6th place. Right behind him was fellow southpaw, Sardine City's Framber Valdez, with 9 points, thanks to a 3rd-, 4th- and 6th-place vote. Another lefty, Mountain Top's Blake Snell, finished 9th with 5 points, a 4th and 5th vote.

Florida's Nick Martinez and Vancouver's Seth Lugo tied for 10th with 3 points but in different ways: Martinez garnered 3 6th-place votes while Lugo grabbed 1 4th-place vote. El Paso's Dylan Cease appeared on one ballot with a 5th-place vote.