From the staff at MLB.com:
Judge, the rare batting champ with 50-plus home runs, received 17 first-place votes to Raleigh’s 13 (355 to 335 in the overall tally) to win his second straight AL MVP and third in the last four years.
This is the first time in the history of the award that both MVPs from one season repeated the next.
So the vote made it more clear than ever that this is the era of Ohtani and Judge, who in different ways have placed their names among the greatest to ever play the game.
Congrats to Aaron Judge on winning the MVP (it took almost an HOUR to finally announce it, which is insane).
It all came down to how much of a positional adjustment you think being a catcher deserves. Both fWAR and bWAR DO do positional adjustments, and both of them had Cal Raleigh still well behind Judge WITH the positional adjustment factored in. However, it is noteworthy that bWAR and fWAR DIFFERED with each other over how close Judge and Raleigh were.
Therefore, obviously, you could say that they were BOTH wrong, and that the positional adjustment should be even greater, and that Raleigh still deserved it. I disagree, but I get the argument.
In any event, congrats again to Judge on his third MVP.
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And if if weren’t for Cheatin’ Altuve and the Cheatin’ Astros, Judge might just have four MVP’s and a championship ring. And Shohei’s words might not sting so much:
Too close
PLAYER 1 2 3 TOT
Aaron Judge 17 13 — 355
Cal Raleigh 13 17 — 335
Jose Ramirez — — 19 224
Bobby Witt Jr. — — 9 215
Tarik Skubal — — 1 139
Congrats to Cody Bellinger on his 7-point, 3-vote, 14th-place AL MVP finish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OpCFu9qw1A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbnS6K4rTX4
God, those are soooooooooooo bad.
THE dumbest part was how Vlad Jr. was a “stat-padder” in one of the videos, and then the anti-stat-padder in the other video.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of MVPs.
Touche!
Jomboy, making sense, suggests a trade for Kwan: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Qz6km3mylxw
He has a career OPS 741, as an OF.
For comparison, Brett Gardner had a career .740 OPS and 100 OPS+.
Kwan’s OPS+ is 109+ entering his age 28 season. He’s compiled 3-5 bWAR in each of his first four years, roughly two-thirds on offense. He’s got a career .351 OBP – better than Gardner’s – and his OBP was lower last year (.330) but in proportion to BABIP.
I think he’d be a fine leadoff guy and LF.
He doesn’t steal many bases, just like Gardner. He doesn’t walk enough, either. Just an average player who I don’t want to hook the Yankees wagon to.
What I love about Kwan is he’s the type of player this lineup is missing – he puts the bat on the ball and gets it in play more than most people on this roster.
Yeah. Of course it’s possible to be bad as a contact hitter (Verdugo, IKF) but their strikeout rates and walk rates are also much worse than Kwan’s (9.5% K rate, 9.3% BB rate). I see him more as a near-Arraez who walks 2-3x more and can play defense (95%ile fielding value per Savant). Four seasons of solid performance with 3-5 WAR by either metric, is enough of a track record to sell me on a guy entering his age 28 year.
Had the Rangers beat guys and the Astros beat guys split their votes instead of being 4-0 in favor of Judge, then we’d have had a tie for MVP. Crazy.
So do you think they voted for judge out of spite or they saw Cal play a lot and weren’t that impressed?
And if other guys who shouldn’t have voted for Cal voted for Judge, it would have been less close.
And you “get” the argument that if you presume that every metric out there is wrong, because they don’t agree, and (not based on anything but the fact that you want to believe it) they’re both wrong – by a lot – and in the same direction – and both in favor of Raleigh… so you get that argument? That’s no argument at all, it’s entirely subjective irrationality.
Another day, another gambling scandal. Sic/YC, who even sets a line for college wrestling?
Congratulations to Judge! He was the best player over the regular season by every metric, and he was obviously the only right pick for award, since that’s what it’s for.
But this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LebrzDtQn_s
Exactly the right perspective.
This is the system they believe in. This is the team Boone prepared.
Worst inning inning in history? I’d say that’s for people who don’t know history.
Check out 1929 Game 4, 7th inning. 8-0 lead becomes a 10-8.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOInkBZn0XM
Interesting! Was that accompanied by a similar accumulation of incompetence in the field, or did Philadelphia just click offensively?
Only two Chicago errors…
Ah, awesome.
https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/october-12-1929-as-stage-historic-world-series-comeback-with-10-run-inning/
One bad sun ball missed, but the landslide had started, and the scoring, too.
Thirty-two million dollars tied up in Ryan McMahon over the next 2 seasons. Thanks to the saboteur, Brian Cashman.
Kind of surprised that Schawrber didn’t receive any first place votes for NL MVP. It wasn’t as if Ohtani had some huge OPS advantage over him, an 86 point difference (1.014 to 928), whereas Judge was nearly 200 points higher than Raleigh (1.144 to 948), a 196 point difference.
Yeah, but when they’re both DHs, there’s nothing to look at BUT the OPS advantage, right?
When you throw in 47 innings of above-average pitching from Ohtani, what could Schwarber’s argument even BE?
Why would a post about the 1929 world series be awaiting moderation?
There was a pretty bad crash a couple weeks after, some big losses in the moment. Replacement Level wasn’t enough, it ultimately took a whole lot of WAR to get things up and running again.
More to your question, I’ve noticed sometimes that if I post multiple links in one post (or even text following a link), it can be perceived as spam and sent to moderator-limbo.
If you edit a post by adding a link that wasn’t there before the edit can cause that. Cut and paste the entire new post, then delete the original one that is awaiting moderation. Then paste in the post you cut in a new dialogue box. Most times that will fix the problem.
Thanks, fellas.
The weirdly odd 2025 of Trent Grisham, He hit a lot better on the road.
https://www.mlb.com/news/where-top-free-agent-outfielders-might-fit-2026
Google with a neat little tribute, put Aaron Judge in the search box and search and an MVP trophy appears on the screen. For Ohtani as well. If you click on it, it slowly rises up.
Yankees near 1 year deal with Yarbrough.
Heyman opined: “You know, you hear speculation about the New York teams, I don’t see that. The New York teams have pretty good right fielders; they have Juan Soto and Aaron Judge. I’m not seeing that.”
He opined?
Heyman may not of heard of some other places on the field, like left and center, where one could theoretically deploy an outfielder.