I hate this award for all of sports. Is it the most valuable player for that team or is it the best player that year? The lack of clarity behind it obviously drives the debates, but at the same time makes it extremely difficult to answer and subjective to how you interpret it. If you believe the award is for the player who carried their team the most then you must also believe Lebron should have won MVP consecutively for the last 20 years. . The Yankees would be nothing without Judge. I think that is blatantly obvious to anyone and everyone. He put that team on his back for the entire year. At the same time, Ohtani is by far the best and most talented player in the league-- it isn't close. He is doing stuff that we haven't seen since Babe Ruth, you can even argue he is doing it better than Ruth. Just this year he is ranked: Home runs (fourth) Triples (fourth) OPS (fourth) Total bases (fourth) EXBH (third) ERA (fourth) Wins (fourth) Strikeout rate (first) Strikeouts (third) Most games with 10 more strikeouts in the AL (first) First player ever with 10 or more pitching wins and 30 or more home runs in a season (Ruth won 13 games and hit 11 homers in 1918, he is the only other player with double digits in both) Ohtani is having one of the best seasons of all time. He is hitting like Mike Schmidt and pitching like Pedro Martinez at the same time, in one year. It's unheard of.
It’s most valuable, not most unusual. The Angels would easily finish 30 games out with or without their unicorn. Sure, Ohtani’s a great player. But let’s not act like Judge isn’t pretty versatile too. Triple crown threat, has a top 5 arm in right field, played outstanding center when they needed him to, steals bases. Yeah, he doesn’t pitch for a shitty team. Can’t hold that against him.
I'm not diminishing anything Judge did this year. It was absolutely incredible and amazing to watch. I love watching history being challenged or broken and I absolutely hate people who root against it b/c who knows if we will ever see something like this again. Ohtani won it last year and the Angels were dogshit so obviously it doesn't matter. Like I said in my first comment, the award needs clarification. Some people vote on best player and some people vote on where the team would be without X player. If it's the latter, then everyone who is voting for Judge should be on board with Lebron winning MVP every single year he has been in the league.
In an era where the Strikeout has become expected, almost accepted, its hard from me to equate Ohtani's strikeout numbers along side someone like Pedro Martinez, who faced more players trying to get a base hit, not a home run. 10K games are now commonplace, thanks to lineup strategy based on analytics.
Who gives a fuck about Lebron James or the NBA? This is a discussion about baseball. Judge will win the MVP. Book it.
One other thing worth considering is that Judge got absolutely FUCKED by Altuve and the cheating Astros in 2017. That will play into the vote.
I would vote for Judge because he broke a record this year. Giving it Ohtani doesn't make sense. Did he break any records?
Judge was overwhelmingly the best offensive player in the AL this year, and was overwhelmingly the most valuable player to his team. He also played half of the season at a premier defensive position, and was above average. Ohtani's season was remarkable in its unusualness, but he already won an MVP for that last year. He virtually never played the field, so there wasn't any defensive contribution. One way to try to compare them is by total WAR (for Ohtani pitching + hitting), and by that measure Judge leads, 10.7 to 9.5. To me Judge is the clear MVP, and he would have been even if he had hit 59 home runs.
Ohtani had a better year in 2022 than last year when he actually won the award, but because he won it last year he shouldn't win it again this year? That's ridiculous. *** I don't agree with it 100%, but I completely understand that Judge is going to win the MVP btw. You can't even bet the award anymore on DraftKings.
Of course you don't agree. You hate all things Yankees Can't you just be happy with your guy getting the batting title?
I just can't be happy about the Mets anymore. My entire enjoyment of this season was sucked out of me when the they shit themselves last weekend. Bassitt literally shit himself on the mound, you could see it in his face. The Mets being able to only play the Dodgers OR the Braves rather than both on the way to WS was right in front of them. There is absolutely 0% chance we go Padres -> Dodgers -> Braves -> Astros to win a World Series. It just won't happen. Maybe my excitement or enjoyment will be different if they take care of the Padres in 2 bc it'll set up the rotation nicely for the Dodgers, but we shall see. Winning 100 games doesn't mean anything to me when a third of the league loses 90+
Actually, what is ridiculous is arguing that because he had a better year this year than last year, he somehow deserves the award more. No one had a year remotely as good as Judge's last year. I also never said that Ohtani winning last year eliminated him from consideration this year; what I said was that he won it last year for his unusualness, and winning it again for that reason when another player was more valuable and better by any objective criteria would make it a poor choice. And arguing in favor of a Yankee gives me no pleasure, since I've hated them for more than 60 years (my mother was a New York Giants fan, and my father was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, and the only thing they agreed on was that they hated the Yankees).
