Another season has come and gone and Aaron Judge has, yet again, put up another monster year that has him in consideration to win another AL MVP award even though the New York Yankees narrowly missed out on the AL East crown by virtue of losing the tiebreaker against the division champion Toronto Blue Jays.
Judge did have a quiet night in the Yankees' 3-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday for Game 162, going just 1-4 from the plate, but that does not take away at all from the historic year he had. He ended the 2025 season with a bonkers slash line of .331/.457/.688 to go along with 53 home runs and 114 runs batted in in 152 games, with Fangraphs rating him as a 10+ WAR player for the third time in the past four seasons — making him the best of the bunch among hitters in a very talented MVP candidacy field.
The Yankees social media is definitely doing their best to push for Judge's candidacy. They posted a thread on X outlining the many statistics that show just how deserving of an MVP Judge would be if the voters decide to award him with the most prestigious individual regular season acclaim for the third time in his career.
Included in the stats that the Yankees social media account posted are Judge's 1.145 OPS (which leads the AL by nearly .200 OPS points), 53 home runs (the most for a batting champion in MLB history), MLB-leading 10.1 Fangraphs WAR, and 36 intentional walks (which is more than all the other 29 MLB teams tallied across the entire season).
If using statistics is the only way to gauge an MVP, then Judge would be running away with the award. Alas, the Yankees star may be the victim of voter's fatigue, and narrative may also not be on his side as well.
Will the Yankees star lose out on MVP to Mariners' Cal Raleigh?
Cal Raleigh has become a media darling amid the Seattle Mariners' meteoric rise all the way to winning the AL West crown, and it's not hard to see why. He has an infectious personality and a mean switch-hitting swing, and he's doing all of his damage from the plate while being an incredible defensive catcher — making him the complete product out on the field.
Judge, without a doubt, is a better hitter than Raleigh. But tallying 9.0 WAR while playing such a ridiculously difficult position all while leading the ascent of an up-and-coming ALDS-bound Mariners team has to have plenty of voters riding the Big Dumper train.
