Former Blue Jays' Silver Slugger snubbed as 2025 finalists revealed

Alejandro Kirk had one of the best offensive seasons for a catcher in club history. He played 130 games and posted a .282/.348/.421 slash line with a .769 OPS. He hit a career high 15 home runs and drove in 76 RBIs, also a career high.

And while he also earned his second All-Star game appearance, Kirk was left off the list of the American League's Silver Slugger finalists, despite putting up some of the best numbers among his catching peers. The Silver Slugger nominations were released exclusively on FanSided on Monday and the awards are voted on by MLB coaches and managers, and they are instructed to use a combination of offensive statistics and their own professional opinions of the best hitters at each position to determine the recipients.

Former Blue Jays' Silver Slugger snubbed as 2025 finalists revealed

While Kirk's 2025 season was very reminiscent of his 2022 campaign, he won't be adding a Silver Slugger award to his trophy case like he did that year. In 2022 Kirk slashed .285/.372/.415 with a .786 OPS. He hit 14 home runs, drove in 63 RBIs and walked 63 times compared to 58 strikeouts. He played in 139 games that season, with time split between catching and DH and he posted a 4.0 bWAR.

In 2025, Kirk has accumulated a 2.3 bWAR and at one point it looked like he would greatly eclipse all of his career highs by a significant amount. However, it looks like the toll of playing 118 games as a catcher caught up to him near the end of the year. Yes he played in more games in 2022, but he only ended up in 78 games (74 starts) as a catcher and the 51 other games came as a DH.

This year, Kirk started 111 games behind the dish, caught in a total of 118 while he was the designated hitter seven times and also was called upon to pinch hit five other times. For all that workload, he still managed a .292 BABIP, an 11.7 strikeout percentage and a career high 50.9 hard hit percentage.

And some of his stats actually lead American League catchers. For instance, his .282 batting average and among players with at least 120 games played, Kirk had the least amount of strikeouts. He finished fifth in hits, third in OBP, and fourth in OPS and fourth in wRC+ with 116.

When the Silver Slugger finalist were announced exclusively on FanSided this morning, Kirk's name was left of the list in favour of Shea Langeliers of the Athletics, Salvador Perez of the Kansas City Royals and Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners.

Now it may all be a moot point, as Raliegh, who is the first ever catcher to hit 60 home runs in a season, will likely run away with the award. But it does feel like Kirk was snubbed of at least a nomination in a season where he was a catalyst for the AL Champion Blue Jays.