An election with two deserving options is rare these days, but this year’s American League (AL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) award was exactly that. This is why I like baseball more than politics.
Each candidate was formidable in his own way. New York Yankees captain and right fielder Aaron Judge — also known as my favorite person, between the months of May and September — is baseball’s best hitter since steroid-enjoyer Barry Bonds. But Seattle Mariners switch-hitting, home-run blasting catcher Cal Raleigh just completed the best offensive season by a catcher in recent memory.
Not to spoil it, but Judge won. The margin was narrow: 17 first-place votes went to Judge and 13 to Raleigh. The Baseball Writers’ Association of America votes on MLB’s major awards in a ranked choice format. No reporter was stupid enough to rank anyone else first.
Perhaps the debate over choosing between Judge and Raleigh hinged on the definition of “Most Valuable.”
Is “Most Valuable” simply a longer way of saying “best player”? Should that be evaluated in the abstract? Or should it be grounded in context? How do we measure value?
Maybe the fact that these questions still linger means that the question is, indeed, a difficult one. But while the decision between Judge and Raleigh was close, there was a clear right answer — a correct “Judge-ment,” one could say.
Objectively, Judge’s metrics were better. Whether you believe in basic statistics like batting average and on-base percentage (OBP) or you lean toward advanced metrics like wins above replacement and on-base plus slugging (OPS), Judge prevails.
Judge topped MLB’s batting average leaderboards at .331, while Raleigh hit a mediocre .247. Judge’s OBP was a ridiculous .457, and Raleigh’s a pedestrian .359. Advanced metrics tell the same story — Judge amassed 9.7 bWAR to Raleigh’s 7.4, meaning that a hypothetical team with Judge on the roster would theoretically win 2.3 more games than an identical team with Raleigh. And Judge’s OPS of 1.144 towers over Raleigh’s .948.
The one statistic Raleigh can claim is home runs: He hit 60 to Judge’s 53.
Any logically coherent argument for Raleigh relies on one of two flawed premises. The first is what I call the “participation trophy argument”: the reasoning that, because Judge already had two MVP awards under his belt from 2022 and 2024, voters should give it to Raleigh.
ESPN reporter Bradford Doolittle put it bluntly in an MVP preview article, arguing that Raleigh’s “storyline” should be a deciding factor.
“Raleigh has the better 2025 story,” he said. “Judge, as great as he was, has done this before.”
But the MVP award is not a participation trophy. Judge should not have been penalized for having previously been good at baseball just because Raleigh’s season had a better storyline.
Further, MVP awards have concrete impacts on a player’s wallet and his legacy. A voter considering a player on a Hall of Fame ballot might, for example, take into consideration how many MVPs a player has won.
Imagine if Judge was considered for the Hall of Fame, but ultimately rejected partly because he had only won a single MVP — except he would have won more MVPs if voters hadn’t refused to give him one because he had already won. It’s paradoxical.
The second argument for Raleigh is equally foolish — that without Judge, the Yankees would have survived, but without Raleigh, the Mariners would have been awful. This is flawed for two reasons. First, anyone who watched the Yankees for more than five minutes would know that a Judge-less Yankees lineup would have rolled over and died. But second, even if the premise held true, a player should not be penalized simply for happening to play for a good team.
The MVP must be given to the best player. Full stop. If you managed a baseball team, and you could add either Judge or Raleigh, who would you choose? The answer to that question is the end of the story.
In 2025, the answer was Judge. Case closed.
