What could decide the Aaron Judge-Cal Raleigh AL MVP race
LAS VEGAS — Aaron Judge cruised in the voting to his first two American League MVPs.
If the Yankees captain is going to capture a third, it will be a much tighter finish.
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The results of a heated AL MVP vote will be revealed Thursday night, a two-man race between Judge and Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh. Judge is vying to become the fourth Yankee to win three MVPs — joining franchise icons Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra — though Raleigh is expected to give him a serious run for his money in the 30 ballots cast by members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Judge won the award unanimously in 2024 and received 28 of 30 first-place votes over then-Angels superstar Shohei Ohtani in 2022.
But Raleigh is standing in the way this year after putting together a record-breaking season in which the switch-hitter crushed 60 home runs — falling shy of Judge’s AL-record 62 but setting the single-season record for catchers, switch-hitters and the Mariners.
That he started 121 of his 159 games at catcher and withstood the grind of the position cannot be discounted, especially with his strong framing metrics and the way he handled a top pitching staff.
Judge was on another level from an overall offensive perspective, though. He captured his first batting title by hitting .331, while his .457 on-base percentage, .688 slugging percentage and 1.144 OPS also all led the majors — and none of the categories were particularly close.
His OPS-plus of 215 — adjusting for league and ballpark factors, with 100 being league average – was well above Raleigh’s 169.
Judge trailed in the home run department, hitting 53 while missing 10 games with a right flexor strain that limited him to DH duties for a month after returning from the injured list.
Across his 95 games in right field, Judge registered three Defensive Runs Saved.
Wins Above Replacement is not the end-all, be-all for MVP voting — and there are arguments that it does not properly value catchers — but Judge led in both versions of it.
His 9.7 bWAR significantly outpaced Raleigh’s 7.4 while his 10.1 fWAR was better than Raleigh’s 9.1.
Still, the race is expected to be a close one. It is possible there may be some voter fatigue for Judge, who has made his eye-popping stats seem more ho-hum in recent years — despite becoming only the third player in MLB history to hit at least 50 home runs and win a batting title in the same season this year.
There is also the fact that the MLB Players Association, in a vote among fellow players, named Raleigh both the Player of the Year and AL Outstanding Player of the Year — likely an acknowledgment of how hard it is to produce offensively at the demanding position Raleigh plays.
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