Aaron Judge is undoubtedly one of the best talents in baseball, with the best bat in the game paired with incredible defense. He has proven time and time again that he deserves the utmost respect in the league, and demands it year by year while leading Yankees teams to playoff berths.
This year is statistically his best season of all time, raising the bar for offensive ability. Not only is he one of the most consistent bats in the game, but he has earned the title of the most dominant player in the AL and deserves the MVP.
Statistical Improvement
Before I dive into how great his play was this year, let’s compare it to the last few. Without the season-ending, he has a career-high in home runs and batting average.
What makes this exceptional is that many power hitters scattered through MLB are not known as contact players. Yet Aaron Judge is batting over .300 for the first time in his career, with a home run rate that may prove to be one of the most dominant seasons in MLB history.
Not only this, but his OBP, SLG, and OPS are at the highest ranks of his illustrious 7-year career. His improvement has been incredible, and his statistics hold him at the top of the league in 2022.
2022 Dominance
Aaron Judge us batting at a rate of .302 with 54 home runs tacked on. He leads the league in home runs, and still somehow ends up at 11th in batting average.
Of the top 15 players batting averages, only 2 have 30 home runs or more. He still makes elite contact on all levels of the field while hitting some of the deepest homers in the league.
The Competition
The first person that comes to mind as competition for the MVP is the reigning winner Shohei Ohtani. He’s having his best pitching year to date, with a 0.5 lower ERA from the previous year. However, his standard of power hitting is not as prolific as it was last year, with 14 fewer home runs. The last thing that holds him from the award is the lack of team success. Ohtani’s Angels are sitting at an abysmal 59-76, while the Yankees are 81-54.
The second closest to the award is Jose Ramirez of the Cleveland Guardians. He’s not in a close third, but he’s third nonetheless. His season this year was good in terms of contact hitting, but his home run numbers are also down and are about half of what Aaron Judge has put up so far.
The last player that may pose a threat is Yordan Alvarez. Alvarez is almost like a watered-down Aaron Judge, putting up similar stats at a lower rate. He almost has a .300 batting average and has knocked 30 balls into the stands, but Aaron Judge oversteps him by a mile.
