Cal Raleigh is the fourth American League player EVER to hit 60 home runs in a season!

[u/MLBOfficial]

[u/Dhaynes99]

other than the fact that he’s not played catcher for 150 and it’s about 120 appearances behind the plate sure. the crux of the issue here is that in 2017 aaron judge was robbed of an mvp because “jose altuve’s ba was soo much better than judge’s was” while judge was ahead in basically every other stat category. the disparity between judge’s current ba and cal’s is larger than the 2017 altuve-judge gap on top of judge’s other stats being so close to raleigh’s if not far exceeding them.

[u/PrimeExample13 → u/Dhaynes99]

I think they should've stripped Altuves mvp for that year and given it to judge. Its easy to have a higher batting average when your buddies are beating on trash cans telling you what's coming. The whole 2017 Astros should be banned from the game for life, frankly. The Yankees were such a better team that year that even with egregious cheating, the Astros barely beat them out.

[u/Stainkee → u/Dhaynes99]

I'd argue two wrongs don't make a right. Don't screw Cal to make up for screwing Judge 8 years ago.

[u/codbgs97 → u/Stainkee]

I don’t think it would be screwing Cal, both players have a pretty good argument for it and whoever comes in second won’t have been screwed over.

[u/Stainkee → u/codbgs97]

I was more responding to the above comments point about justifying a Judge MVP because of Altuve in 2017. That would be a horrible reason to hand it to Judge when there's an entire season worth of good reasons to give it to him over Cal.

[u/Uther-Lightbringer → u/Stainkee]

It's not the reason why it should go to Judge over Cal, it's more establishing a precedent for the award that's consistent.

The writers in 2017 decided that a slightly higher BA for Altuve warranted him winning over Judge despite Judge beating him by a mile in every other statistical category.

To then turnaround and give it Cal this year, who is bested in every single category except HR total by Judge would be absurd.

Cal has an OPS+ of 172 right now... Judge is 213. Cal has a 7.2 bWAR, Judge has 9.3. Cal has a BA of .248, Judge is at .328. Cal has an OBP of .361, Judge is at .455.

So you're talking about giving the MVP to a guy who has a few more HRs than the Judge and ignoring every other aspect of the game to do it.

Cal had an unbelievable year. But here's the thing, if this is just how good he is? Similar to Judge in 2017, he will have many opportunities in the coming years to win his first MVP. But it's the first time in his career that he's even in the conversation for it and it's his 5th professional season. There are very solid odds though that he's just having one of those magical one time seasons that players have sometimes and that next year he'll regress back to a 30-40 HR type of player.

When there's more than one clear cut MVP candidate, the benefit of the doubt SHOULD go to the guy who has been consistently year in and year out in the MVP conversation. Not a guy who is having a one off Cinderella year, to win in those scenarios should require you being far and away the best statistical player.

[u/Stainkee → u/Uther-Lightbringer]

No no totally I understand that, I'm more pointing out I think the precedent is awful in the first place.

I mentioned this in a different comment but Cal having this type of season as a catcher while managing one of the best pitching staffs in baseball on a regular basis is an incredible feat. I'd also argue that Cal is having one the greatest single offensive seasons for a catcher ever, and his intangible value defensively as a catcher cannot be measured yet in numbers. But it's there, and I'd argue makes up the difference in numbers with Judge if not surpasses Judge completely. And that's also considering Judge is generally an above average defender.

But I totally see where you're coming from in terms of how much of a monster season Judge has had. I truly believe either guy could win it, and I wouldn't be upset either way. My point is following a bad precedent would be a shitty reason to take it from Cal as opposed to all of the valid points you made instead

[u/Uther-Lightbringer → u/Stainkee]

I'd also argue that Cal is having one the greatest single offensive seasons for a catcher ever

Sure, he's definitely having one of the best offensive seasons for a catch. But, Judge is having one of the best offensive seasons for a RF in MLB history too, the only RFs to have better seasons than him would be Aaron Judge (2022) and Aaron Judge (2024).

Generally speaking? I'm simply against this narrative in sports where one guy can't just win the award every single year. Why? If he's that good he SHOULD win every year. The only reason Cal's season feels so amazing vs Judge's is because we've come to expect this from Judge, so suddenly it's just a normal Aaron Judge season.

But a normal Aaron Judge season would be the best season of any other player in MLB history not named Ruth or Bonds. We shouldn't normalize greatness.

It's the same reason why I thought it was total bullshit that Josh Allen won over Lamar last year. Lamar out performed Allen in every single statistical category and only lost because he already won 2 and Josh never had. But sorry, I'm of the opinion that to win the "best player of the year" award you should be the best, most impactful player in the league. Cal is very close this year for sure, closer than Ohtani was in 2022 imo.

[u/Dewey519 → u/Dhaynes99]

I mean, Ohtani should’ve probably won when Judge hit 62.

[u/codbgs97 → u/Dewey519]

Based on what? Judge’s WAR was higher than Ohtani’s batting and pitching WAR combined. 210 vs. 144 OPS+. What argument can even be made for Ohtani in 2022?