My Ballot For Major League Pickleball 2025 Season Ending Awards

Jorja Johnson is my 2025 Major League Pickleball Most Valuable Player.

MLP

We have come to the end of the regular season of Major League Pickleball’s 2025 slate, and like any good professional league they’re going to hand out Season Ending awards. I had the opportunity (as a member of the “pickleball media”) to help identify the nominees for the various awards a few weeks’ back, and this week the league released the awards for fan voting.

Votes are due back by 8/14/25: go to this link to open the ballot. One vote per email address.

I’ll run through each award, name the nominees, list who I thought should have been nominated, then discuss my vote. Critical information for the voting includes the Player Season Stats data at majorleaguepickleball.co and Erik Tice’s Public MLP XLS which has some per-event breakdowns and other data, and PickleKey, a relatively new resource that has some breakdown data on MLP players.

I’ll name both a male and female in each category, even though the ballot only takes one name for each major award.

Premier League Most Valuable Player

Official Nominees: Anna Bright, Jorja Johnson, JW Johnson, Hayden Patriquin, Gabe Tardio, Anna Leigh Waters.

My Nominees: these were the same six nominees I listed a few weeks back.

My Vote: Jorja Johnson, easily. She led the league in both W/L record (51-7) and in points won (an astounding 70.24%). Dallas was stream-rolling through the league until the STL MLP event and finished 2nd in the league. She took a major step forward this year and it’s just a matter of time before that presents out on tour as well.

My male vote would go to Hayden Patriquin, who nearly went undefeated with partner Tardio in gender doubles for the season and who dominated in Mixed to finish the season with a 50-7 record.

Premier League Most Improved Player

Official Nominees: Mya Bui, Kate Fahey, Blaine Hovenier, Eric Oncins, Meghan Dizon, CJ Klinger.

My Nominees: Kate Fahey, Blaine Hovenier, Eric Oncins, Hurricane Tyra Black, Tina Pisnik, Hunter Johnson . I only got 3 of 6 as “most improved” is interpreted differently by different people.

My vote: Eric Oncins. Oncins went from slightly better than a 50% record in Challenger last season to a 38-24 record in Premier for 2025. There’s not another example of a player not even good enough for Premier last year being as dominant a force this season.

My female vote would go to Kate Fahey. She was the biggest liability on St. Louis last year and went just .500, but dominated this year , going 44-14 as St. Louis took over the Premier league. However, if you wanted to argue that Meghan Dizon deserves this award more I wouldn’t argue with you; she went 19-39 last year but 36-17 this year, a fantastic turnaround.

Challenger League Most Valuable Player

Official Nominees: Brooke Buckner, Daniel De La Rosa, Pablo Tellez, Chao-Yi Wang.

My Nominees: Michelle Esquivel, Daniel De La Rosa, Pablo Tellez, Chao-Yi Wang (close: I got 3/4)

My vote: it has to be Chao-Yi Wang, who led the league in both W/L record (41-15) and in points percentage won (58.21%).

My male vote would go to Wang’s teammate Pablo Tellez, who led all challenger males in both games won and points won.

Challenger League Most Improved Player

Official Nominees: Marshall Brown, James Delgado, Lina Padegimaite, Layne Sleeth

My nominees: James Delgado, Anderson Scarpa, Lina Padegimaite, Alix Truong.

My vote: James Delgado. In his first MLP season he went 35-20 and raised many eyebrows based on where he was just a year ago, which was playing amateur tournaments on the east coast and being a near unknown on the pro scene.

My female vote would go to Lina Padegimaite, who drastically improved her W/L year over year and was a vital part of her team’s success. However, if Truong was eligible I probably would have voted for her.

Agree? Disagree? Cancel out my vote by going to the ballot today and make your voice heard. Remember to vote by COB August 14th!