OT: MVP- Judge or Raleigh?

[Dooch]

Judge does have twice the payroll around him, not that it’s massively indicative of value.

I am by no means anti Judge on this and honestly do tilt to him being deserving, but keeping an open mind to Dumper given this award is not totally one size fits all as value can be seen many ways.

Twice the payroll, yet he broke the AL IBB walk record b/c they'd rather face anyone else. JRod would be the Yankees 2nd best player if he played for them....

 

[superjohn]

The home run total from Raleigh is historic for a catcher and historic for any player but it's wild people are saying he's having the greatest offensive season ever for a catcher. Piazza hit .362, 40 homers, 124 rbi, 201 hits, only 77 strikeouts, 8.7 WAR, 1.070 OPS and he lost the MVP to Larry Walker who had even better numbers than him, despite the Dodgers finishing 5 games ahead of the Rockies. That's how it's supposed to work, when you're head and shoulders ahead of everyone else you get the award.

Judge's #'s are so much better than anyone else in baseball this season, it's pretty silly this is even a debate.

 

[Scoe]

The home run total from Raleigh is historic for a catcher and historic for any player but it's wild people are saying he's having the greatest offensive season ever for a catcher. Piazza hit .362, 40 homers, 124 rbi, 201 hits, only 77 strikeouts, 8.7 WAR, 1.070 OPS and he lost the MVP to Larry Walker who had even better numbers than him, despite the Dodgers finishing 5 games ahead of the Rockies. That's how it's supposed to work, when you're head and shoulders ahead of everyone else you get the award.

Judge's #'s are so much better than anyone else in baseball this season, it's pretty silly this is even a debate.

It shouldn’t be a debate but you already know the writers will bring up the 60 hrs for a catcher as a convenient excuse to not give Judge a 3rd mvp in a row.

Judge will get the same treatment from the writers that Jokic and Jordan got after winning back to back MVPs.

 

[jibsey]

MLB awards 2025: MVP and LVP, Cy Young and Cy Yuk, top rookies, managers of the year

I look forward to this column every year. You look forward to disagreeing with every word of this column every year. Now, to the awards!

www.nytimes.com

 

[FfldCntyFan]

The percentage of men over 6'4" is small. Then consider whether tall athletes gravitate towards baseball and, if they do, whether they are steered towards the pitchers' mound.

Plenty of tall guys have had great success hitting. Stanton's one guy on Judge's own team who had some monster seasons.

There have been quite a few tall baseball players over the years and many have shown very good power numbers (I can go as far back as 6'5" Hank Greenberg who started his MLB career during the depression).

There haven't been many who hit for average at the top of their league however because they obviously have larger strike zones to cover and normally have longer swings.

Ted Williams was the one exception, a very tall (6'4") player who regularly was at or near the top of the league in batting average. The rest would normally have a number of years further down in the pack and occasionally a stray year or two close to the top.