MVPs: Like Nothing Even Happened

 

There's gonna be a lot of talk in the next couple years about how Rob Manfred is trying to make baseball palatable to everyone while also robbing it of the aspects that help the majority of people enjoy it. And one of the things that the opposition party will point out is that the two richest teams were able to buy the two best players in the game and then they won consecutive MVPs, after competing for MVPs in the same league for several years. 

The last time someone who was not Judge or Ohtani won an MVP was 2020, the year that the voters had only 2 months of sample size and gave awards to two guys in their 30s who were hot. The last two seasons, despite valid opposition in both leagues, Judge and Ohtani have won MVPs. Last year Francisco Lindor honestly should have won an MVP, but Ohtani's 50/50 year put that out of the question. This year, Aaron Judge won it over Cal Raleigh, which is a very controversial decision, one that even I don't really agree with. But again, these two are the stars of the game, they're both in their prime, they're both having incredible seasons and by-and-large nobody's surpassing their greatness.

Judge's season was still a great one, but it's very clear that the second half took some of the wind out of its sails. That first half he hit .355 with 35 homer and a 1.194 OPS, and in the second half he only hit .286 with 18 homers and a 1.051 OPS. He slowed down tremendously, and despite the odd postseason moment he just couldn't ride it out to the end. And while statistically Raleigh did also buckle in the second half, with an .859 OPS as opposed to his initial 1.011, he still produced enough of a power surge to lap Judge and finish the season with 60 homers [not counting the postseason ones]. There's a lot of people who talk about the sentimentality of the sport, and there's something very cool about a switch-hitting catcher leading the league in homers with 60. I'd absolutely commemorate that. Saying that it doesn't matter if he didn't hit .265 is short-sighted, because we've given Giancarlo Stanton awards for power nonsense. 

Aaron Judge still managed to hit for power and contact in a season, and led the Yankees to the postseason almost single-handedly, yet again. He also has three of these. If Cal Raleigh goes his whole career without an MVP, sportswriters are gonna retroactively go 'maybe he should have gotten it here'. But y'know. Nobody knows anything. 

Anyway, remember how people were convinced that Judge was over the hill going into the contract and now he's won 2 straight MVPs? Amazing.

Not really much to say on the subject of Ohtani, though. He's just the best. Having as good of an offensive season as last year, plus getting to pitch, and being just as good? Yeah, give it to that man, for sure. I dunno what else to say, even Schwarber'd agree that there was no shot. 

But yeah, again the season is defined by two guys getting paid the works, while a guy making much less just scrapes underneath. Tony Clark, I hope you're taking notes.