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Judge or Ohtani for MVP? Picking this year’s MLB award winners

Imagine ranking among the top four in your league in home runs, total bases and OPS. And wins and strikeouts and ERA. And not winning the MVP award.

That shows how ridiculous Aaron Judge’s season has been and how heated the MVP debate has become. There’s a clear winner in the Bronx and a clear winner in Anaheim: our guy. In other places, it’s a great conversation.

Other players have done what Judge is doing, unless he becomes the first player with both 60 homers and a Triple Crown. No one has done what Shohei Ohtani is doing: he hit 34 homers and struck out 213 batters. Don’t give me Babe Ruth; the Babe was a pitcher and then a hitter and didn’t do it simultaneously like Ohtani, who has only one other comp in MLB history: Himself in 2021.

MVP voting was unanimous last year. There was no debate. Ohtani got all 30 first-place votes on the BBWAA ballot after hitting 46 homers and striking out 156.

So this year, he’s doing more of the same. His stats show he has taken a small step backwards at the plate but a big step forward on the mound, winning 15 games, lowering his ERA from 3.18 to 2.35 and leading the league with 11.9 K’s per nine innings. That’s Cy Young Award stuff.

If he put this season together in 2021, he’d probably still be the unanimous winner. But it’s 2022, and two things need to be noted. First, Judge’s season is spectacular. Second, while it can be argued Ohtani’s season is equally spectacular, we’ve seen it before. It’s not as trendy.

Not that repeating greatness should be in this equation, but it is. Ohtani could probably win the award every year because he dominates on so many levels, like Michael Jordan or LeBron James, but sometimes voters seek the trendy pick if only to mix it up.

Make no mistake, Ohtani’s competition is better this year, although Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was flirting with his own Triple Crown pursuit in 2021. Judge not only has rubbed elbows with his 60-homer brothers Roger Maris and Ruth, he is most responsible for the Yankees winning the AL East.

Ohtani’s Angels are horrible. Even more so than last year. Not his fault. It’s the front office’s once again for failing to take advantage of having Ohtani and Mike Trout on the same roster. Historically, MVP voting has usually been about rewarding a player whose value is getting his team to the postseason. On that front, Judge clearly stands out.

In this corner, that’s where we’re leaning. Judge is the guy, but isn’t it fabulous each is sprinting to the finish line? A day after Judge hit his 61st home run, tying Maris for the AL record — 12 behind Barry Bonds’ MLB record — Ohtani faced the A’s, extended his hit streak to 14 games and carried a no-hit bid into the eighth inning. During that 14-game streak, Ohtani went 3-0 with a 0.90 ERA on the mound.

Eventually, we might need a Shohei Ohtani Award to honor a two-way skillset, given annually to the best combined hitter and pitcher in each league, because we hope that’s how the game will evolve.

NL MVP:
The Dodgers set a franchise record for wins, yet they’re so good and so balanced that they won’t have the MVP. Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and several others have been terrific, but it’s possible the top two vote-getters would be on another team: Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado of the Cardinals.

No. 2 could be Betts or Freeman or San Diego’s Manny Machado. If it’s Arenado, teammates would finish 1-2 in the voting for the first time since the Giants’ Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds in 2000. But No. 1 needs to be Goldschmidt, who led in a bunch of offensive categories through August and has slipped in September, which hasn’t mattered because the Cardinals clinched their division.