José Ramírez has won the Bob Feller Man of the Year Award for the fourth time, recognizing his standout 2025 season with the Cleveland Guardians. Pitching coach Carl Willis received the Frank Gibbons/Steve Olin Good Guy Award for his media cooperation and pitching development. The honors were announced by the Cleveland chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America on November 23, 2025.
The Cleveland Guardians celebrated two key figures from their 2025 campaign with awards from the local Baseball Writers' Association of America chapter. Third baseman José Ramírez secured the Bob Feller Man of the Year Award, his fourth win after previous honors in 2016, 2021, and 2022. At 33 years old, Ramírez drove the Guardians to the AL Central title, playing in 158 games with a .283/.360/.503 slash line, 34 doubles, 30 home runs, 85 RBIs, and 44 stolen bases—leading the team in all those categories. He earned his seventh All-Star selection, finished third in AL MVP voting, made the All-MLB First Team for the second consecutive year, and won his seventh Silver Slugger Award. Ramírez also set franchise records for extra-base hits and multi-homer games, passing Jim Thome for second in RBIs.
Nominees for the Man of the Year Award included Steven Kwan, Cade Smith, and Gavin Williams.
Carl Willis, the Guardians' pitching coach, won the Good Guy Award, the first for a Cleveland coach since DeMarlo Hale in 2021. The award, dating to 1968 and named after Frank Gibbons and Steve Olin, honors media accessibility. In his 15th season across two stints with Cleveland—first from 2003-2009, then since 2017—Willis helped transform the rotation from a 4.40 ERA (24th in MLB) in 2024 to 3.86 (10th) in 2025. The staff's September surge featured a 20-7 record and a six-man rotation that allowed two or fewer runs in 19 straight starts, clinching the division on the final day.
Manager Stephen Vogt praised Willis: “Carl’s presence is invaluable, let alone his ability to develop pitching and help these guys continue to grow.” Catcher Austin Hedges added: “What Carl and the other pitching coaches do with our pitchers is unbelievable. That’s why we have some of the best young arms in the game.”
Willis, a former big-league pitcher with World Series rings from 1984 with the Tigers and 1991 with the Twins, has coached five Cy Young winners, including three with Cleveland: CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee, and Shane Bieber. He worked closely with Gavin Williams, who improved from 3-10 in 2024 to 12-5 with a 3.06 ERA in 31 starts in 2025, including a near no-hitter against the Mets on August 6. Williams said: “Carl is awesome. We talked a lot over the offseason and tweaked some things in my delivery.”
Other Good Guy nominees were Vogt, Hedges, Kwan, and assistant director of communications Austin Controulis.