The AL MVP race is heating up in the dying moments of the regular season. All indications point to it going down to the wire between New York Yankees star and reigning AL MVP Aaron Judge and the best player of an upstart Seattle Mariners team that booked its trip to the playoffs in recent days, catcher Cal Raleigh.
On Wednesday night, both Judge and Raleigh strengthened their respective cases. Judge hit his 51st home run of 2025 in a continuation of years of elite play that has him ranked as the best hitter in the entirety of MLB according to many metrics, while Raleigh's superstar breakout season continued and has now reached historic levels after the Mariners catcher reached 60 home runs on the season in a 9-2 win over the Colorado Rockies.
A few trusted metrics rate Judge's contributions more highly than Raleigh's; he rates higher in Fangraphs' WAR metric, and he's miles ahead of him as a hitter — with the Yankees star being more complete than Raleigh. Of course, the Mariners star is playing a more difficult position, and that has to factor in the voting.
But for ESPN insider Jeff Passan, it will be Judge who would get his MVP vote if he had one even though he's not exactly very happy with his decision.
“I think if I had a vote right now, I would go Aaron Judge and I would feel terrible about it because there's such a good argument for Cal Raleigh. I think, habitually, as an industry, we have underrated and underappreciated catchers. I think that's in part a function of WAR not having the ability to objectively capture all the things they do,” Passan admitted, via Talkin' Baseball on X (formerly Twitter).
Jeff Passan on the AL MVP race:
“If I had a vote right now, I would go Aaron Judge and I would feel terrible about it” pic.twitter.com/yjyB3Wx4hr
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) September 24, 2025
The narrative favors Mariners' Cal Raleigh over Yankees' Aaron Judge
Raleigh definitely has narrative on his side when it comes to the 2025 AL MVP voting. The Mariners blossomed into a legitimate playoff contender with one of the best offenses in MLB due in large part to Raleigh's contributions, and he improved so much relative to previous seasons that voters will be drawn to that kind of ascent.
Judge, however, is just an all-around better hitter and he's more consistent from the plate than Raleigh ever will be. But Raleigh, as the Mariners' catcher, also has to call games, memorize hitter scouting reports so he could call the best pitches possible, and be in crouching position for more than half of a game's runtime. And his counting stats are shiny; expect the Mariners star to be in the driver's seat for the award heading into the end of the regular season.
