Aaron Judge Is The MVP — And It Isn’t Even Close

To our non-baseball-fan readers out there, forgive me. But I need to go off on a bit of a rant. There is a raging debate in the baseball world over whether Cal Raleigh or Aaron Judge should be the American League MVP. Those in favor of crowning Raleigh argue that, because he is a catcher who hit 60 home runs and the Mariners won the division for the first time in ages, he deserves it. In reality, Judge is the MVP once again — and it isn’t even a particularly close race.

My argument in favor of Judge is a simple one: Judge is not just better but significantly better than Raleigh in every major offensive category other than home runs and RBIs. The numbers are as follows:

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Philip Klein

Philip Klein is the editor of National Review Online.

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To our non-baseball-fan readers out there, forgive me. But I need to go off on a bit of a rant. There is a raging debate in the baseball world over whether Cal Raleigh or Aaron Judge should be the American League MVP. Those in favor of crowning Raleigh argue that, because he is a catcher who hit 60 home runs and the Mariners won the division for the first time in ages, he deserves it. In reality, Judge is the MVP once again — and it isn’t even a particularly close race.

My argument in favor of Judge is a simple one: Judge is not just better but significantly better than Raleigh in every major offensive category other than home runs and RBIs. The numbers are as follows: